Anti-evolution bill clears another hurdle
Orlando Sentinel: Anti-evolution bill clears another hurdle. Ugh.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave a partisan passing grade to the bill critics say is designed to challenge the teaching of evolution in Florida classrooms.
Sen. Ronda Storms, a Tampa-area Republican and former teacher, is carrying the bill at the behest of religious groups who lost a close vote to amend Florida’s science-teaching standards earlier this year. the Academic Freedom bill, as it’s known, says teachers can’t be discriminated against for teaching ideas contrary to the theory of evolution.
Storms said it was needed because teachers are “muzzled” from bringing up problems with the theory by administrators who “give you bathroom duty, they give you bus duty, you don’t get a planning period … so that their unhappiness is expressed.”
The panel passed the bill 6-3, with Democrats expressing some reservations that it could prompt lawsuits for violating church-state separation, and was a stealth attempt to inject religion in classrooms.
