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May 5, 2005
Alabama on My Mind*
I don't live in Alabama. Anywhere there is an effort to legislate nonsense may well be the starting place of a trend that could even reach California or Washington, DC. For this reason, I take interest in Alabama. On May 3rd all bills before the Alabama State Legislature that had not passed at least one of the two houses, were dead for the remainder of the session. There were at least four nutty bills, HB30, a book banning bill that I have commented on here, HB352, HB716 and SB240 which were creationist bills masquerading as "The Academic Freedom Act". All four are dead for this session. Good, but perhaps not good enough.
Over at Panda's Thumb congratulations have been handed out to those who worked against the creationist bills. And indeed, congratulations are in order. Last year a bill in the same 'spirit' as these three passed the Alabama Senate and almost passed the House of Representatives. On the one hand, this is great progress. On the other hand, there was a last year, a this year and there will no doubt be a next year. As Bob Collins says in the letter published on Panda Thumb,
There is no time to rest. This summer and fall, the Alabama State Board of Education will pick science textbooks for our schoolchildren. They will also decide whether to continue use of the embarrassing "Evolution Disclaimer" pasted in the front of every elementary, middle and high school textbook that mentions anything that happened over 6,000 years ago.
And there is no time to rest on the legislative front either. Next February all this will start over in Alabama and many other state legislatures. These kinds of proposals will not go away as long as the Allens, the Carns, the Beasons, the Mitchells and the Erwins of this world continue to be elected. We have their equivalent in every state.
This is not just an Alabama issue.
* With apologies to Wayne Greenhaw, author of a book by the same title.
Posted by Duane Smith at May 5, 2005 1:29 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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