An AP story entitled Indiana House Speaker says he’s killing creationism bill continues the misreporting I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about SB 89.
The most recent bit of bad reporting says:
A bill that would have specifically allowed Indiana’s public schools to teach creationism alongside evolution in science classes has been shelved by the leader of the Indiana House of Representatives.
The good news is that Speaker Bosma is killing the bill. The bad news is that the AP doesn’t seem to have glanced at the bill it purports to be reporting on unless by “specifically allowed” they really mean “no longer says anything at all about.”
Here is what the bill now says, following Sen. Simpson’s amendment on second reading:
[A school] may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.
It says nothing at all about science or science classes. It also no longer even says anything about “creationism.” It just says that schools can teach the origin stories from various religions, so long as they teach those from multiple religions. Which, of course, they can already do.
Yes, the good news is that he is killing the bill. He even pointed out (as I believe you did before) that this is lawsuit waiting to happen that Indiana cannot afford.
If the amended version was generic enough to present philosophical/theological origins, then it was shelved because of fear of lawsuits doesn’t make sense. Bosma said “I didn’t disagree with the concept of the bill”. Seems to me they didn’t want to deal with the original hype of ‘creation science’ and then used it as a straw man in order to shelve it.
Sen. Kruse was going to actively push against the version as is and Bosma didn’t want the fight.
Mr. Bosma made the right decision even if he did put the secondary spin on it (did not disagree with concept) in order to keep his far right voter base satisfied. Excellent example of politicially based decision making. But still have a few weeks to see if this thing raises its head again.