Those of you who think that the issue of gay equality is about fair-mindedness, tolerance and respect for differing views, think again: a Mississippi high school has cancelled its annual student prom shortly after they declined the requests of one of its students – a lesbian – to bring along her girlfriend as her prom date and to wear a tuxedo instead of a dress. The teen, Constance McMillen, has since been encouraged to sue the school. She was also awarded a scholarship check of $30,000 from talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres for her bravery in challenging the School District’s ruling.

But does she have a right to attend her school’s prom on her own terms? And should the school be forced by law to hold the prom in order to cater for McMillen’s requests? Should the school be coerced into making provision for the exception?

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[Last updated by Duane: 9 March 2010]

According to a recent SMH article, the South Australian Non-Government Schools Registration Board decided to ban the teaching of creationism as part of the science curriculum.

Under policies published in December, the board said it required “teaching of science as an empirical discipline, focusing on inquiry, hypothesis, investigation, experimentation, observation and evidential analysis.”

The SMH article provides an opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues relating to creationism and science. However I only want to make one simple point about the misconceived relationship between the two.

To put it simply (as the SA board have done), the empirical discipline, focusing on inquiry, hypothesis, investigation, experimentation, observation and evidential analysis – watch this – is an integral part of creationism. It’s not anti-science or non-science, but values the scientific method as a way to understand the world in which we live. The two are very much homogenous, in the same way that materialists might view the relationship between evolution and science.

Science is the study of the natural world, which Christians would say is the study of the world God created. While materialists don’t accept a Christian worldview, we all still live in the same world and so we all have access to exactly the same evidence.

In studying this evidence however, materialists must draw conclusions shaped by materialist presuppositions. Appeals to design (implying a designer) are not allowed. The fallacy of this objection is that it presumes that the design argument is an appeal to ignorance. However the inference of design is based on an analogy of what we do know scientifically, not what we don’t. So Christians are not limited by a materialistic paradigm. This doesn’t mean that creationists invoke God-of-the-gaps solutions to problems that the materialist’s paradigm cannot currently resolve. But it means that they approach the evidence with the view that God created and that God’s word provides clues about the world which can inform our presuppositions for understanding the evidence. A practical example of this is the work of PhD physicists Dr. Russell Humphreys and Dr. John Hartnett, who have both proposed models for the universe to rival popular big bang cosmology.

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Student refuses assignment on Devil

Granted, this is typically Mathew’s arena but I could not pass it up, being unsure that it was even on his radar out there in Australia. Every day there are countless stories of interest regarding society and culture with respect to Christian living, which I hear in my corner of the world on FamilyNet Radio (Sirius XM). Today I heard that in Hope Mills, North Carolina, there was a female student who was coerced with a failing grade on an assignment if she refused to complete it. However, she said the assignment violated her Christian beliefs.

Even though Tieanna Trough is an honour student and usually positive about school work, the report said, when she received an assignment to write a paper on making a deal with the Devil, she refused. “I believe you don’t write about how to sell your soul to the Devil,” she said.

According to CBN Newswatch, the assignment

was part of a creative writing class at Gray’s Creek High School meant to get students thinking. Students had been studying a short-story called The Devil and Tom Walker, about a miser who sold his soul to the Devil to get rich. The students were told to write an essay on how they would sell their souls to the Devil, or what trade they would make with the Devil.

When Trough refused to write the essay, she said her teacher offered her a lousy deal: either do it, or get a zero. Trough’s parents said their daughter’s rights were violated. They complained to school officials after Trough was given another assignment that still conflicted with their daughter’s beliefs.

“We can’t allow God into the classrooms, but yet we’re going to allow the Devil in the classroom? That’s the way I felt,” her mother said.

The book and its short-stories are standard curriculum material, the school principal John Gibbs said. “I don’t think it’s anything wrong. I mean, parents are going to do what they think is correct and, y’know, I respect that. We can sit down and talk about what we think is right.”

He doesn’t think it’s anything wrong? What if, in the context of English literature, the students were asked to write something about their soul with respect to God? Would the principal think something was wrong in that scenario? If engaging the creative minds of the students with respect to the Devil is okay, could God sneak into the classroom through the same backdoor entrance? Or is that the point at which we would discover a zealous display of Special Pleading?

And if a student refuses an assignment on the grounds that it violates her religious beliefs and the teacher responds by threatening to fail her on the assignment, does the principal really think there’s nothing wrong there? Really?