Reason Versus Powers of Reasoning

South Carolina state senator Mike Fair has introduced a bill that would, according to Agape Press, "free up [South Carolina] public schools to teach the controversy surrounding evolutionary theory by requiring them to expose students to the 'full range of scientific views that exist' on biological evolution."

In proposing this bill, Senator Fair said, and I quote the Agape Press article,

"Many of us -- most of us, I hope -- come from homes where children are taught by their parents that there's a reason behind it all," Fair says. "The biblical worldview, the one that I embrace, is that our Creator God spoke things into existence, and that same creator God demonstrated His love for me by sending His only son, Jesus, to die on the cross. And what a wonderful message that is." (http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/262005f.asp)

I am infuriated at this, for two reasons.

First: There is an obvious First Amendment, establishment-clause issue here. One hopes the Federal courts will read this quote as part of his legislative intent.

And second, and much more important: Am I somehow a second-class citizen because, rather than being taught that there was a capital-R Reason for everything that happens, I was taught that human reason -- Darwin's well-settled "theory," with natural selection occurring over geologic time -- could explain everything that exists?

Perhaps I'll send Senator Fair a Flying Spaghetti Monster emblem for his car. Anyone got any better suggestions? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?