The Bill Muehlenberg Trophy (Honourable mention): Brian Rohrbough

The arc-welder has barely had time to cool, and already contenders for the next Muehlenberg are lining up. Honourable mention must go to Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel was killed in the 1999 Columbine school shootings, and who was given the opportunity to share his thoughts about the recent Amish school shootings on CBS Evening News:

This country is in a moral free-fall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak, without moral consequences and life has no inherent value.

We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. And I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children.

Come on, AV, I hear you cry. The guy lost his son. Well, that's no excuse for idiocy, and Rohrbough's reflections afford no better description. Ed Brayton from Dispatches from the Culture Wars absolutely nails it:

If the teaching of evolution and not having God "in the schools" really leads to this terribly immoral society where people kill each other randomly because life has no inherent value, then how does Rohrbough explain the fact that every other Western democracy has far lower rates of murder, rape, teen pregnancy, and things like school shootings while teaching evolution far more comprehensively than we do in the US, and in far more secular societies than we have?

Not to mention more liberal abortion laws, in many cases. I like this comment from a contributor at Pharyngula:

I blame school violence on teaching subtraction to our students. It is a ruthless game where bigger numbers devour smaller numbers without moral consequences. How can we expect our children not to try to subtract each other?