Iowa State Rep. Skyler Wheeler is the anti-science legislator who, last year, co-sponsored a bill that would have required public school teachers who taught evolution, global warming, the origins of life, or human cloning to “include opposing points of view or beliefs relating to the instruction.”
The bill died in committee, thankfully, but Wheeler wasn’t done arguing with people about it. The graduate of Pat Robertson‘s Regent University kept pushing his anti-science ideas on Facebook and deleting any criticism.
Wheeler’s latest attempt at making Iowa as ignorant as he is comes in the form of House File 2031, which he co-sponsored. It would allow public schools to teach classes on the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament in order for students to learn (among other things) of their influence on “law, history, government, literature, art, music, customs, morals, values, and culture.”
More importantly, this would become the only elective course in Iowa in which the State Board of Education is tasked with creating the course standards. They’d be pushing districts to offer the class in a way they don’t do for, say, a regular elective history class. In that sense, this course receives special treatment, and advocates of church/state separation know it.
“To us, this is a clear attempt to teach Christianity,” cautioned ACLU lobbyist Daniel Zeno. “This would be the only specific course, and this specific course picked a specific religious text.”
“Why just this one book?” questioned Representative Art Staed, a Cedar Rapids Democrat. “It appears on the surface to put [Christian] beliefs into our curriculum in our schools.”
Read the full story at the Friendly Atheist Blog
