Posted on 10/27/2005 1:41:22 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A former school board member who denied advocating that creationism be taught alongside evolution in high-school biology classes changed his story Thursday after lawyers in a federal courtroom played a TV news clip that recorded him making such a comment.
William Buckingham explained the discrepancy by saying that he "misspoke."
Buckingham's testimony came in the fifth week of testimony in a lawsuit filed by eight families who are challenging the Dover Area School District's policy that students hear a statement about intelligent design in biology classes. Critics say intelligent design is a repackaging of the biblical view of creation and thus violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
Buckingham, who led the board's curriculum committee when it approved the policy a year ago, confirmed Thursday that he said during a June 2004 board meeting that the biology textbook is "laced with Darwinism." The clip that was shown later in the day came from an interview that he gave to a news crew from WPMT-TV in York later in the month.
"It's OK to teach Darwin," he said in the interview, "but you have to balance it with something else, such as creationism."
Asked to explain by a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Buckingham said he felt "ambushed" by the camera crew as he walked across a parking lot to his car and that he had been consciously trying to avoid mentioning creationism.
"I had it in my mind to make sure not to talk about creationism. I had it on my mind. I was like a deer in the headlights. I misspoke," he told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who is presiding over the non-jury trial.
Earlier in Thursday's court session, Buckingham claimed that he had been misquoted in stories from two newspapers that reported his advocating the teaching of creationism to counterbalance the material on evolution.
"It's just another instance when we would say intelligent design and they would print creationism," he said.
When Stephen Harvey, the plaintiffs' lawyer, noted the similarity of the newspaper reports to what he told the TV crew, Buckingham replied, "That doesn't mean it's accurate."
Buckingham moved to North Carolina in July and resigned from the board, citing health problems.
The statement that the Dover teachers are required to read before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution says Darwin's theory is not a fact and has inexplicable gaps. It refers students to a textbook, "Of Pandas and People," for more information.
Intelligent design supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
The trial began Sept. 26 and could last through early November.
The plaintiffs are represented by a team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The school district is being represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a public-interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that says its mission is to defend the religious freedom of Christians.
As my mother used to say, a liar misspeaker has to have a good memory!
Daily Dose of Dover Doo-Doo ping!
Ping for the archives (once I get home).
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful mispeaker
Power supply ping
""I had it in my mind to make sure not to talk about creationism. I had it on my mind. I was like a deer in the headlights. I misspoke," he told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who is presiding over the non-jury trial. "
I like the tag!
Junior has the ping list. I'm not at my computer. I'm pinging a few names from my self-search list.
I remember all of these AP stories highlighting how Joe Wilson "misspoke" about how Cheney sent him to Niger.
Joe Wilson's another major-league 'misspeaker'. Not as good as Bill Clinton, though. Clinton's an excellent 'misspeaker'.
Leftist, topdown elitism dies and the far left loses its control mechanism.
Thanks for the ping.
Wake me up when the creo crowd gets here.
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The biggest problem of speaking for God is that you have to apologize for Him.
Thanks for the ping.
All things will find their own balance. Where is the balance to evolutionary theory? It's simple: if the theory weren't useful, it would not hang around.
"The biggest problem of speaking for God is that you have to apologize for Him."
I always thought the biggest problem of speaking for God is that you have to apologize TO Him for screwing up what He said.
Frankly I hate the term 'misspoke'...whenever anyone, and I mean anyone, says they 'misspoke', I just automatically translate that to mean, that they 'lied'....
He's ashamed of his creationism, so deeply ashamed that he would perjure himself to conceal it. Just like Clinton and his fornication.
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