Americans are, sadly, a dream deferred. We pretend that we're the next generation of human social evolution, but, really, we're not. That's why we're arguing and griping over a movie about evolution.

Despite the fact that On The Origin of Species has won a Toronto film festival award and debuts in Britain this week, U.S. distributors have declined to take up the flick, which chronicles scientist Charles Darwin's crusade to bring modern science, common sense and progress into all of our lives. And, yes, diehard Christians are to blame:

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film, which stars Paul Bettany and his wife, Jennifer Connelly, has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

The movie, made by filmmaker Jeremy Thomas, concerns Darwin's own personal struggle within his scientific efforts, yet, for some reason, Americans are holding up the flick's release. Because, you know, over a century after evolution's discovery, England's offspring can't wrap their heads around a little thing called progress.

It's sad, really, for we always make hay over the fact that we're highly-evolved politically, yet, in reality, we're a bunch of backward brutes who can't see things from a different angle. Disgraceful, really...

Image via Juan Eduardo Donoso's flickr.