As I pointed out over at Voice of Dakota, this decision does a grave disservice to our kids. Far too many kids come out of high school incapable of reasoned debate, or even giving a reaonsable amount of support to their own opinions.
Take this kid down in Florida who has the ACLU suing over his refusal to stand for the pledge of allegiance. The teacher expressed an opinion about the kid's decision not to stand, and now he's got a lawsuit cooking. Apparently because he shouldn't have to listen to viewpoints he disagrees with.
If we want to churn out well-adjusted kids they are going to have to be exposed to some of the tough stuff in life. That includes sticky issues of religion and politics. If they don't learn about these things when they're young they may never learn it.
Update:
In state elitists are blaming this on "small minded country folk:"
What a good idea. Avoiding controversial subjects makes them go away, right? We are the only state to do this, I might add. This is a case where it is quite clear that in a rational debate ID has no chance of winning, so in order not to piss off small minded country folk, they decided to skip the topic. Embarrassing.
Right. Because big-city, liberal types are famous for their ability to tolerate ideas they don't agree with.
How about we just recognize that both sides of issues like intelligent design are capable of making total fools of themselves? That's no reason to avoid debating these hard issues, but pretending like the problem lays solely with one side or the other is foolish and naive.
Update:
Tom Simpson:
I’m afraid that North Dakota is dropping the ball, and letting it’s state debaters down by not allowing this topic. Association spokesman Bob Hetler said, “Some schools were afraid parents wouldn’t allow their kids to do this one.” If that’s the case, than so be it. Because of “some schools” are afraid, they should have asked the parents. If the parents didn’t want their kid to debate topics like this, why are they allowing their kids to participate in debate, in the first place?
That's about where I'm at.