Barbara Forrest: You can't cloak La. Science Education Act's religious intent
JULY 18, 2010
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In his June 26 response to Charles Kincade, the Rev. Gene Mills, executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), portrayed the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) as "landmark" legislation — a "bold step" to "promote critical thinking skills" in public school science classes.
Decrying "censorship over academic freedom," Mills credited "the courage of our policy writers" for Louisiana's "cutting-edge, beneficial law." He added that "the LSEA passed the Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate with near unanimous bipartisan support."
Of these assertions, only the last is consistent with the facts. The Legislature did pass the LSEA, but their doing so had nothing to do with courage. It had everything to do with Family Forum's aggressive lobbying and cultivating legislators for almost 10 years. Most important, the LFF finally got a governor, Bobby Jindal, who would sign a creationist bill. The fact that a largely new Legislature was scared to death of crossing Jindal made 2008 the right year for the LFF to strike.
Nor did "our policy writers" write the Louisiana Science Education Act, as Mills claims — unless one considers the LFF a policy writer, which is precisely the status that this organization enjoys under Bobby Jindal's administration.
The LFF announced on their website that they wrote the bill. They were assisted by the Discovery Institute (DI), a creationist think tank in Seattle that has hawked "intelligent design" for almost two decades. The