Last week, I posted about the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee, home of the legendary Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, where there stands a statue of lawyer William Jennings Bryan. (He was on the Creationist side.)

Recently, there’s been a push for the courthouse to put up a statue of the other attorney in the trial, Clarence Darrow. It would be a privately-funded statue, with the American Humanist Association managing all the money involved.

There’s no legal issue here. The courthouse appears to be fine with it, too. Darrow is as much a part of that courthouse’s history as Bryan. It’s just a matter of raising enough money, which the sculptor’s office said would start happening soon.

Which brings me, as so many roads do, to Ken Ham and his “research team.”

Ham and the Myth-thrusters (a great band name) don’t seem to understand that there’s a statue of Bryan already on the courthouse grounds.

They can easily condense millions of years into a few thousand… but I guess three seconds of research takes them decades.

They believe the proposed statue of Darrow is just some atheist conspiracy to promote their religion through the government, completely ignoring the Creationist counterpart that has been there for years:

Groups like the American Humanist Association are known for aggressively campaigning for the removal of any religious — especially Christian — symbol from public places, and yet they apparently want what is basically a secular symbol of evolution and agnosticism placed in a public place. So, according to the AHA, religious symbols are apparently unacceptable — unless they promote their religion! You see, in many courts humanism is recognized as an official religion. This is utterly inconsistent and it highlights the AHA’s intolerance of anything Christian. Why are these groups really so adamant that Christian symbols be removed?…

Since Ham and the Truthtwisters missed it the first time, here, once again, is the statue of Creationist William Jennings Bryan that’s already on the courthouse grounds:

All the sculptor wants to do is add some balance. Remember: This wasn’t even the Humanist group’s idea. The AHA just offered to facilitate donations if needed. This isn’t even about religion. It’s about documenting a popular event that happened at that location.

But this is typical Christian Persecution Complex: They whine about atheists wanting neutrality while simultaneously basking in their own privilege.

In this case, Ham doesn’t even notice a statue that’s right in front of him.

(Top image via brent_nashville on Flickr)

