Would You Adam and Eve It?
Given his background as an Orangeman, a former Secretary of the Lord's Day Observance Society and his past sympathy for the British Israelite movement, it was perhaps no surprise that Nelson McCausland should get involved in advocating creationism and a greater emphasis on Orange culture. But there's a difference between, say, Mervyn Storey as an interested individual and local politician asking the National Trust to consider explaining alternative views of the origins of the Giants' Causeway and Mr McCausland, as Culture Minister, appearing to come close to issuing directions to the Ulster Museum to get the Orange bannerettes and the Bible quotes out. The minister says his letter to the Museum was "very balanced", but balance is in the eye of the beholder - it's impossible to imagine an Alliance or nationalist minister writing a letter which would achieve a similar balance.
I'm just wondering in practice how the Museum might achieve the necessary balance. As families stroll through the displays will they be reading labels like "Scientists say fossils like this are the stony remains of animals which lived millions of years ago. However considering the
Nelson McCausland wouldn't be drawn on his personal view of the age of the Earth on the Nolan show this morning, but Edwin Poots has previously stated that he believes in the "young earth" theory. Anyway, wherever you stand on the creationism, intelligent design, evolution sliding scale it's going to be hard to get an agreed consensus view.
Frankly it's going to get confusing having endless arguments raging in all the labels attached to display cases in the Ulster Museum. So perhaps the best thing might be to have a distinct dedicated Museum of Orange Culture, Ulster Scots and Creationism, which provides the alternative views so treasured by our minister (though maybe not the "Stork theory of babies" sarcastically suggested by Richard Dawkins on the Nolan show)
I suggest such a Museum's motto could draw on the famous rhyme of the English Lollard movement in the 1300s: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the Orangeman?"
I'm 
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