The right to think is a privillage, that we as Americans, usually take for granted. No one really ever stops to think how lucky they are to have an opinion or how they are able to make their own choices. In the year 2010, we never would think that the right to think would be taken away from us, or that we almost didn't have the right to begin with. But it comes as a shock to us that not too long ago in America, the mid 1920's to be exact, that privillage wasn't yet ours. The play Inherit The Wind tells the story of how we got the right to think, and what we had to do to win over that right. Inherit The Wind, even though the names and events have been changed, tells the story of the John Scopes trial against having the right to think, and people thinking that it was okay to do so. John Scopes was a science teacher who was put on trial for teaching evolution in the classroom, instead of teaching creation as the Bible tells and explains it.
This act that John Scopes committed was voluntary to put a stop to The Butler Act, and people from thinking that if you were not loved by God, then you were a sinner. What was the deciding factor for John was when an eight year old boy died, and the family was told that he would not go to heaven because he had not yet been baptised. It wasn't that he wanted to go against religion, but he felt that this was taking it too far. If it wasn't for the acts of this man, who knows if The Butler Act would still be in law? He took a stand for what he believed in and even though he lost the trial, he still won for sticking up for his beliefs, and in time The Butler Act did vanish from the legal books.
Now we are able to think whatever we want about the subject and not have our beliefs questioned by the law. And really John Scopes was the one who started us on realizing that we should be able to think what we want. The fact is, to think we almost didn't have the right to think for ourselves and express our own opinions is frightning. I never thought much of it and always thought that it had been that way forever, but it appears not. I'm glad I have the right to think but the truth is it might not always be that way. It's like Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee said " It might have been yesturday. It could be tomorrow."

Taylor Hernet