Image: Colin Purrington

Louisiana keeps getting crazier as many sane people were pushed out by the Katrina nonrebuilding policy, and brainwashing children always has been one of the favorite pastimes of religious nuts. From an Americans United for Separation of Church and State press release 1/5/09:

A new policy under consideration by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is slanted to favor creationism and should be revised, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Due to lobbying by the Religious Right, Louisiana legislators approved a law in 2008 that allows for “supplemental materials” to be used in public school science classes. The Board has developed a policy for reviewing these materials that is seriously flawed, says Americans United.

“It’s obvious what’s going on here,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Louisiana elected officials are once again trying to undercut the teaching of evolution and slip creationism into science classes. This effort must fail.”

In a letter sent to the Board, Americans United warns that the proposed review policy is constitutionally suspect because it appears to open the door for creationist concepts to be taught in public schools.

The Board calls for allowing challenged materials to be reviewed by a panel that could easily be stacked with people sympathetic to creationism. It would bypass the expert opinion of the Louisiana Department of Education.

“The proposed procedure for reviewing challenged supplemental material is unnecessarily complicated and appears designed to provide a forum for promoting creationism,” asserts AU’s letter.

Corruption in the South? I'm shocked, just shocked!

Religious extremists are constantly coming up with dishonest schemes to circumvent the Constitution, yet they pretend that they are more moral than the rest of us. They conflate sexual frustration and scientific illiteracy with morality instead of understanding morality as concern and compassion for others.