A Different World, Almost

... a small group of intellectually inclined gathered in one or another of their rooms in the Hall for argument and discussion of the deep questions that were disturbing the minds of the day, perhaps the most disturbing being Darwin and his theory of Evolution. This sort of debate was not considered the safest sport in the world at that time and some say they were labeled “agnostics.” A poem, called All Hail Millenuim in the same Tyee, suggests as do a picture of the Prexy with his big stick, and the “Press Club” and “Suppress Club” that even in those “good-old-days” the students harbored thoughts of protest. Just yesterday, November 20, 1968, news was carried over radio, and T.V. that the Supreme Court had handed down a decision that the State of Arkansas can not legally forbid the teaching of Evolution in its school children.

 It's crazy to think that just over 50 years ago, this theory of Darwin's was considered so controversial that it was an issue taken to the Supreme Court; that something that is essentially the basis of my university degree was once illegal to teach to children.

But it's really not so different from now, where the Supreme Court is looking at the for-now controversial issue of LGBT marriage rights.

Earlier in this account JBT talked about her husband, WFT's confirmation around the age of eighteen. His mother was offended when the church leadership suggested he was too inquisitive and that she should somehow put a stop to it. Maybe that sort of attitude about the Church is hereditary–JBT's daughter would later take my mom and her siblings out of church after an Easter service upset the children too much to enjoy the holiday. My mom thinks our family was only part of a church because it was socially unacceptable, until recently, not to be; our family has always been more on the side of science, when the two doctrines clash. JBT didn't say in this account, but I know that WFT's side in these Darwin debates was pro-evolutionary theory.

I enjoy the way JBT labels agnostic with quotation marks.