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Arkansas House passes unconstitutional bill putting creationism in schools
- jfengel 6y ago"Constitutional" is what 5 Supreme Court Justices say it is. Given that there are 6 Supreme Court Justices belonging to the political party that unanimously passed this bill, I see no reason to believe it will remain unconstitutional.
- threatofrain 6y agoA two-sentence bill. > A teacher of a kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) science class at a public school or open-enrollment public charter school may teach creationism as a theory of how the earth came to exist. > This section is permissive and does not require a teacher to teach creationism as a theory of the earth came to exist. The bill passed the GOP-controlled legislature 72-21 with all Democrats voting in opposition.
- foogazi 6y agoDoes it say anything about which creationist myths can be taught in science class?
- dragonwriter 6y agosince its permissive, all it does is mean there is no punishment under Arkansas law (if the bill completes the process and becomes law). The federal Constitution doesn’t require states to separately punish violations of federal law, including the Constitution, so this is probably just meaningless virtue signalling to Christianists, not unconstitutional.
- david38 6y agoEducation is relegated to the states though, per the tenth amendment.
- readflaggedcomm 6y agoMandating was ruled unconstitutional. Allowing was legislated. Therefore, allowing is unconstitutional, Ars writes. It's not clear whether Ars Technica are simply unaware of the legal precedents or if they are simply using this bill as an opportunity to signal their cultural affiliations.
- gigatexal 6y agoI guess as long as it’s framed on tests as “according to groups considered ‘creationists’ (how the earth came to be according to the Christian Bible) the earth is: 1000 years old 2000 years old 6000 years old ... “ I think this frames it as a religious trivia thing and not taught as dogmatic fact.