Title: Message
From the Tuscaloosa
News:
Bill pushing alternatives to evolution moves
ahead
By PHILLIP RAWLS
Associated Press Writer
March 10,
2004
Religious groups are successfully pushing legi slation that would
protect
science teachers in Alabama's public schools and colleges who
offer
students alternatives to evolution.
A Senate committee approved
one version of the bill Wednesday, and a House
committe! e passed a similar
version a week ago. The two bills now go to the
Senate and House for
consideration.
John Giles, state president of the Christian Coalition,
said the
legislation "gives a license to teachers to teach alternative views
on
evolut ion and provides a statutory safety net against frivolous
lawsuits
from groups like the ACLU."
Paul Hubbert, executive secretary
of the Alabama Education Association,
said the teachers who belong to his
organization have not complained of a ny
major problems, and AEA is not
taking a position on the bill.
"It's more of a political issue than an
issue in the classroom. I don't
know of a single incident in the classroom,
but it's one of those political
issues that people like to jump on," Hubbert
said.
The Senate Education Committee voted 7-0 Wednesday for
legislation,
sponsored by Sen. Wendell Mitchell, D-Luverne, that says no
public school
or college teacher in Alabama shall be terminate! d,
disciplined or denied
tenure for presenting alternatives to evolution. The
legislation also says
students can't be penalized for subscribing to a
particular position on the
origin of life, "so long as he or she demonstrates
acceptable understa nding
of course materials."
Similar legislation,
sponsored by Rep. Jim Carns, R-Mountain Brook, got
approved by the House
Education Committee 10-2 on March 3.
Larry Darby, a Montgomery attorney
and president of the Atheist Law Center ,
said the bill ignores the
scientific evidence behind evolution and is an
attempt by religious groups to
get God into the classroom.
He predicted that if the Legislature passes
the bill, it will be challenged
in court.
Interim St ate
Superintendent of Education Joe Morton said he has no problem
with the
legislation. He said the State Board of Education has already done
several
things on the issue, including putting a sticker in the front of
biolog! y
books that say evolution is a "controversial theory."
The board has also
adopted a policy that encourages students "to wrestle
with the unanswered
questions and unresolved problems still faced by
evolutionary
theory."
Proponents of the le gislation say it doesn't allow science
teachers to skip
evolution and only teach other positions. True academic
freedom ought to
include a full discussion, said the Rev. Dan Ireland, a
Southern Baptist
minister and executive director of the Ala bama Citizens
Action Program.
"Academic freedom means you pursue all aspects of a
subject and then you
come to your own conclusions," Ireland said. "To many
people the creation
aspect is more real and plausible than any others
taught."
< BR>Dail Mullins
Chair, Science & Public Policy
Committee
Alabama Academy of Science