Clarence Darrow Quotes
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men.
Darrow, Clarence. The World's Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case. National Book Company, 1925.
The most contentious issues regarding this Constitutional principle is the attempted prohibition of the teaching of evolution in public schools and/or the requirement to teach “creation science”, a contrary view about evolution which is religious and not science. Evolution is particularly contentious because most religions differ widely on the subject. Amongst Jews, Muslims and Christians, evolution is opposed by most strict fundamentalists and endorsed by the rest—the majority. Except for Roman Catholics where all, even the fundamentalists, accept the Theory of Evolution.
This book is endorsed by major religious organizations of all faiths as well as National School Boards Association, National Education Association, National PTA, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of Elementary School Principals, American Association of School Administrators and others. It is used as a guideline by most schools systems in the United States.
In 2005 Rose published a number of cartoons some of which depicted the Muslim Prophet, Muhammad which offended many fundamentalist Muslims who had a tradition who had a tradition of never depicting the visage of the Prophet. A delegation of clerics demanded an apology from Rose and the country of Denmark, claiming that they and Islam, like other religions, were entitled to respect.
In the vernacular of the times, "printing" meant newspaper and pamphlet publishing.
While the Visigoths had some very advanced legal principles, this law, quoted in its entirety is typical of the nations that were part of the Catholic world. The church and its doctrines were immune from any possible criticism, explicit or implicit. This is the most formalized and sophisticated compendium of laws of the so-called “barbaric peoples” of Europe. The compilation was in many ways a documentation of the traditional laws of the Visigoths that had evolved over hundreds of years.
One of the noteworthy aspects of this quote is a fundamental intellectual clash. Al-Quaeda and other Islamic fundamentalists are genuinely very concerned that the West will interfere with their religion and their desire to unite all the Muslims in the world. Ironically, the West prides itself on the tolerance of religion and the freedom for anyone to practice any religion. The West does not see where it is interfering at all with the Muslim religion or its moral precepts. The problem lies in the different perception of ideas. Since about 1100 there has been a closing of Islamic intellectual growth and change. Any idea which is contrary to the orthodox view of Islam is perceived as hurtful or at least dangerous to the Muslim. Individuals in the West question Islamic relation no more than different sects of Christianity, Judaism and other religions. Allowing freedom is not sufficient for this Islamic notion; there must be no exposure to different ideas or examples. For us, no exposure means no freedom. While there are many Muslims which agree with this position, there are also many who disagree completely and believe that Islam is strengthened by exposing Muslims to all the ideas in the world. He was killed by an American air strike that had targeted him.
A teacher had been arrested and threatened with jail because he had taught Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in a high school science class. The ACLU paid for famed attorney, Clarence Darrow, to defend Scopes in the famous trial that exposed the ignorance and bias of the schools that prohibited teaching about evolution as it contravened the Protestant fundamentalist Biblical version of the creation of humans. While the ACLU had a major victory, even today many school systems—mostly in the South—still prohibit such teaching and while no teacher can be jailed, they can be fired for not following the curriculum of the local school board.
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform.
