Rand Paul used to have the courage of his convictions.

That was before he appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show, and spelled out some of his convictions. To quickly find himself furiously backpedaling, due to the political firestorm touched off when his convictions took the national center-stage.

Now, when he makes a public appearance, and is asked a politically sensitive question — for example, one that, if answered honestly, might cost him some lunatic fringe votes (these, mind you, are people whom Rand Paul considers lunatics!) — he just takes the fifth.

The Paul spoke to the Christian Homeschool Educators of Kentucky (CHEK) conference on Friday. Please ask who the Christian Homeschool Educators of Kentucky are; you’ll be glad you did.

OK, before we go into Rand’s answers, here’s a bit of info about what CHEK is all about. Their objective is to:
“Protect children from mental physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by secular humanists in a socialist society or governmental system.”

Awesome, right?

And this is the kind of stuff that has Rand Paul playing dodge-ball these days:

Well, part of this “abuse” that the socialist secular humanists try to impose on our children is telling them that the earth is more than 6,000 years old, and humans never rode saddled dinosaurs.

Hence the first questioner asking Rand how old the earth is, and Rand completely dodging the question.

For those of you who can’t watch videos (at work?):

QUESTION: Was there a point in life where you became a Christian [...] and also, how old is the world?

PAUL: I forgot to say I was only taking easy questions. … (laughter) … I’m gonna have to pass on the age of the earth. I think I’m just gonna have to pass on that one.