Indiana State Sen. Dennis Kruse is one of the most anti-science, pro-forced Christianity legislators in the country. This is a guy who co-authored a bill to require recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools, wanted Creationism taught in science classrooms, and tried making it illegal for kids to learn sex ed in school without their parents’ permission.
He’s just full of horrible ideas… yet he’s been an elected state official since 1989. Which is to say people keep re-electing him because he’s bad at what he does.
No wonder he’s trying to put forth that Creationism bill again. And that’s not the only disturbing thing about Senate Bill 373. There are actually three separate parts that need your attention.
The first tells schools to put up a “durable poster or framed picture” that says “In God We Trust.” And don’t think you can get away with a small little thing, either. The bill specifies that the poster must be “at least four inches in height by fifteen inches in width and include print large enough to fill the dimensions established by this subdivision.”
The second says that any district offering elective classes that survey the religions of the world — say a “comparative religions” class — must include “the study of the Bible.”
The third is perhaps the most troubling:
The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.
You know, some Christians understand that teaching Creationism is illegal because it’s not science and it’s just blatant promotion of one religion’s mythology. They don’t even push for that anymore. Even “Intelligent Design” hasn’t worked. They usually say they want to teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, as if any ignorance about the subject is proof that God Did It.
Not Kruse. He’s so old-fashioned, he wants to break the law using the original iteration of anti-evolution propaganda.
Even in Indiana, this likely won’t get anywhere. In 2012, his pro-Creationism bill got through the Senate after an amendment that allowed teachers to include creation myths from other faiths including Islam, Buddhism, and Scientology… but that bill died in the House. There’s no reason this should have any greater success. If it ever passed, the courts would have to overturn it immediately.
Which makes you wonder why Kruse keeps doing this. It’s a waste of time. It’s not science. It doesn’t help students. Why bother? For the same reason Donald Trump keeps pushing for his idiotic border wall: He’s trying to appease his base instead of doing anything substantive and evidence-based.
The question is why Indiana keeps letting him get away with it.
(via National Center for Science Education. Screenshot via YouTube)