Inappropriate analogy of the day

Seattle Post Intelligencer:

A Republican state senator from Yakima reignited a controversy yesterday by comparing stem-cell research to the Holocaust, just weeks after House Republicans apologized for making a similar remark.

Holocaust survivors and Jewish leaders contend that it's grossly inappropriate to hold up genocide as the moral equivalent to scientific research that could alleviate disease and suffering.

Nonetheless, Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima, did just that yesterday, saying that government policies allowed the Holocaust and genocide in Africa -- and that those victims were at one time embryos.

(snip)

The comment drew immediate condemnation from Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle.

"We want our state to be the place to produce medicines (that) can approach a wide variety of physical diseases," Kline said. "This is a far cry from the Holocaust. I personally have a difficult time accepting any kind of political rhetoric that attempts to draw moral equivalency between science on one hand and murder of millions of people on the other. This is not that kind of occasion."