Creationist Bill Signed by Jindal

Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 12:08:53 pm PDT

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has signed a stealth creationist bill into law, and American educational standards take a huge step backward: Science law could set tone for Jindal.

The creationist front group called the Discovery Institute is quietly crowing, and maintaining the fiction that the bill is not religiously-based.

At the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that promotes intelligent design and backed the new education act, senior fellow John West said he and his colleagues did not directly lobby Jindal. The group did notify its supporters that groups such as the ACLU and the science organizations were pushing for a veto.

West said critics misunderstand the bill, which he said is not about creationism or intelligent design. Rather, he said, it’s about clarifying that teachers are free to expose their students to the debates that Darwinian scientists have among themselves.

Instead, too many public school students get a “watered-down” discussion of evolutionary theory or nothing at all from teachers, and administrators are too concerned with not angering parents.

“This bill is not a license to propagandize against something they don’t like in science,” West said. “Someone who uses materials to inject religion into the classroom is not only violating the Constitution, they are violating the bill.”

For some reason, though, religious advocacy groups seemed to receive a very different message.

The bill enjoyed support from the Louisiana Family Forum, a group that is upfront in its push for more religious expressions in the public sphere.