We’ve got a real snoozer of a mayoral election going on in Seattle right now. No one likes the incumbent, who is nonetheless pretty much a shoo-in to be re-elected. His token challengers are fighting over issues like “let’s build an expensive, useless streetcar system to compete with our expensive, useless bus system,” and “maybe we should revisit our policy of not clearing the roads when it snows,” and “it would be cool if we could somehow replicate Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ project right here in Seattle!”
Not so in Tulsa, where mayoral candidate Anna Falling is keeping things interesting by insisting that the most important issue is adding a creationism display to the city zoo:
“It’s first,” she said to calls of “hallelujah” at a rally outside the zoo. “If we can’t come to the foundation of faith in this community, those other answers will never come. We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city.”
She’s also got clever ideas about what sorts of people she wants in her administration:
Falling, who has founded several Christian nonprofit groups and is a former city councilor, also said the next mayor needs to appoint people to boards, authorities and commissions who will “honor God.”
“We will also look for people who want to characterize the origins of both man and animals in a way that honors Judeo-Christian science that proves God as the creator,” she said.
It’s not hard to see the potential benefits of this “honoring science” approach. It could lead to closer ties between the Greater Tulsa Area Hispanic Affairs Commission and the Catholic Church. The Ethics Advisory Committee could finally stake out a strong position on blasphemy. And the Plumbing Appeals Board could insist that plumbers offer an add-on service of clearing out blocked places in spiritual pipes.
Of course, in Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s America, no one taking such a pro-science stance could ever get elected. I predict Falling won’t even make it through the primary. And, like Mooney and Kirshenbaum, I blame the New Atheists.
