Senate committee refuses to scrub law on equal treatment of evolution and creation in Louisiana schools

A senate committee in Louisiana has refused to repeal the Balanced Treatment for Creation Science and Evolution Science Act of 1981. This was brought up for discussion last month by Sen. Dan Claitor, but his effort to scrub the law from the books was outvoted 4-2 on Tuesday.

A woman walks beside an exhibit displaying the evolution of humans, at the Darwin's Evolution Exhibition in the Calouste Gulbenkina Foundation in Lisbon February 12, 2009. | REUTERS/JOSE MANUEL RIBEIRO

The act allows teachers in public schools to "provide information and instruction in both creation and evolution models" as "necessary and appropriate," giving both a balanced treatment.

"Are you aware that there is an abundance of recent science that actually confirms the Genesis account of creation?" said Sen. John Milkovich, who is against repealing the law, as reported by Christian News Network. "[S]cientific research and developments and advances in the last 100 years, particularly in the last 50, 20, 10 years have validated the biblical story of creation by archaeological discoveries of civilizations in the mid-east that secularists said did not exist and further archaeological research determines are true."

Claitor reportedly replied, "I'm not asking you to give up your belief in God. I'm not asking you to get in bed with the devil. I'm asking you to follow your oath to follow the Constitution."

The act was already challenged in 1987. In the Edwards vs. Aguillard case, the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional since it upholds the teaching of a particular religion, thereby violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that specifically says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... " However, it still remains as law.

In 2013, then-representative Claitor sponsored a proposal to repeal the law, but it was denied by the House Education Committee of Louisiana.

There are similar efforts to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act, which also reportedly welcomes discussions of creation in schools, but these efforts have so far been unsuccessful.