This Should Be Fun

Just recently we've had the spectacle of Global Warming deniers trying to claim that they are the true defenders of the enlightenment. I suspect that this isn't a line their American equivalents would run. The US Right is so interwoven with religious fundamentalists that even secularists don't want to claim the enlightenment crown too fiercely.

That's not true here. Australian fundamentalists are useful to the Right, but they are pretty peripheral, and not powerful enough to get offended when their allies start talking about the enlightenment as a good thing.

But the Australian Right these days is caught up in worship of Republicans. Most decry the fundamentalist wing of Bush's coalition, but also downplay it. In particular, they don't want anything to do with creationism, and want to pretend its not a crucial part of the movement they support. Bush, they say was in an alliance of convenience with creationists because of all the other things they had in common - he didn't really deny evolution.

So it will be interesting to see how they handle the reported fact that Sarah Palin is a creationist, as well as a global warming sceptic. It's no great surprise. In America the two usually go hand in hand. But its going to be fun watching the Craig Emersons of the world explain how it is the environmentalists who are the new church persecuting modern Gallileos, when the new standard bearer for global warming deniers believes the world was created in six days.