The prophetess has spoken: gay marriage is the biggest issue facing the U.S., vaccines cause mental retardation and evolution is false. In any other Western country, a rejection of science and an obsessive focus on a comparatively minor issue would render a candidate untenable.
But in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, candidates compete to prove their indifference to science and disdain for modernity.
Together with a refusal to raise taxes and the need to slash government, the denial of science completes the core of Tea Party doctrine. And few candidates better encapsulate this modern unholy trinity than Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
Traditionally, media-edited quotations have unfairly represented politicians. In the case of Bachmann, they serve to reduce the ardor and ignorance of her statements. She is at least as fanatical as the media portrays her.
In a 2004 appearance on the radio program “Prophetic Views Behind the News,” Bachmann said, “gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation,” not just moving forward, but “in the last, at least thirty years.”
Clearly, gay marriage has proven a larger issue than terrorism, global warming and two major wars.
Unfortunately, Bachmann’s inability to identify threats extends into a failure to distinguish correlation from causation or anecdote from peer-reviewed science.
In a recent debate, she repeated the story of a mother who claimed her child suffered from mental retardation following an HPV vaccination.
No link between vaccinations and mental retardation has ever been shown. But anecdote supersedes science, at least for Bachmann (a 1998 article in “The Lancet” did make such a link, but it was retracted. However, the damage was done. Vaccination rates in Britain faced a sharp decline, according to the New York Times).
While Bachmann’s irrational views of gay marriage and vaccination are threatening, they pale in comparison to her recent call to axe the Department of Education. Bachmann finds the Department of Education unconstitutional, as she said at the 2011 Palmetto Freedom Forum. However, the proposal to cut the department most strongly relates to her desire to undercut science.
Without a Department of Education, states would have greater freedom to implement distinct curriculums. And additions that would collapse on a national level might easily take hold on the local level.
For example, Minnesotans might be taught intelligent design-a theory of faith, not science-alongside evolution. And as she revealed at the recent Republican Leadership Conference,
Bachmann would likely spearhead the move.
Bachmann voted against the 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, an initiative that made it easier for graduated students to repay college loans. Her vote, coupled with her assessment of science, reveals her resistance to secular education and the danger her candidacy poses. She has become the prophetess of education’s doom.
In the global economy, education matters. Bachmann favors dismantling the department responsible for overseeing federal education laws and financial assistance in order to more easily incorporate unscientific and disingenuous material into school curriculums.
As Bachmann once said, “Not all cultures are equal, not all values are equal.” Indeed, they are not.
Scott Rosenfield is a Medill junior.
He can be reached at [email protected]
