Restitutor Orbis

The future is science. The past is superstition. The so-called Religious Right wants to take us all back in time to the wonderful world of the 13th century. They'll do it with us kicking and screaming if they can. We saw how the Republican Base treated science under Bush. It was discarded, discredited, and politicized to fit an agenda that favored development and big business and the destruction of our environment. It was also an agenda that put medical research on a back burner.

Obama has turned back the attack on science and on our future. CNN reminds us that

Bush twice vetoed legislation that would have expanded federally funded embryonic stem cell research. Those siding with Bush say scientific advances allow researchers to conduct groundbreaking research without destroying human embryos.

But as Huffington Post reports,

From tiny embryonic cells to the large-scale physics of global warming, President Barack Obama urged researchers on Monday to follow science and not ideology as he abolished contentious Bush-era restraints on stem-cell research. "Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," Obama declared as he signed documents changing U.S. science policy and removing what some researchers have said were shackles on their work.

"It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda _ and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology," Obama said.

Scientists are, of course, happy. The Religious Right? Not so much. They call the repeal "a defeat for morality in the most basic questions of life and death."

"The action by the president today will, in effect, allow scientists to create their own guidelines without proper moral restraints," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said.

Ann CNN reports that

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told The Washington Post he thought Obama's policy reversal on stem-cell research was an "ideological sideshow."

That's an amusing comment coming from the most ideologically driven group in this country. In fact, we can never be entirely free of ideology, but I think Obama is coming as close as possible in his action to freeing scientific research from the constraints of ideology.

And the religious fundamentalists who oppose stem cell research are a small minority in this country. Millions more will benefit from the changes and will no doubt be happy with the shift in direction.

Obama is right in saying that promoting science "is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient _ especially when it's inconvenient."

Of course, these changes are just the most recent in Obama's offensive to roll back Bush's anti-environmental and anti-science agenda. As CNN reminds us,

Within a week of taking office, Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency to review a California application to regulate greenhouse gases and told his Department of Transportation to begin implementing fuel efficiency standards passed last year but not implemented by the Bush administration.

The Right makes that claim that Obama is uniting his foes to oppose him. Seriously, it is difficult to imagine them mustering more numbers than they have now - and right now, they are nothing but a very vocal minority. They have lost power, they have lost credibility with the American voter, and they are well on their way to changing the GOP's status to that of a far right fringe group, a regional party of uneducated, fundamentalist Christian white males. They are putting themselves on the wrong side of history, and that is never a good idea.

I do not think it is too much to say that for 8 years that torch of the Enlightenment had been reduced to a flickering candle. Obama has fed that flame, and it is a torch once more, bright enough to guide us into an uncertain future, the darkness of superstition, the threat of the 13th century, all around us.