Holy Cow! When does this monkey business end?
Rep. Jim Holt (R-Springdale) has proposed a new bill in the Arkansas House of Rep.-- House bill 2548.
That was a couple of days ago and the newspaper article has now expired but the gist of it is described as:
“AN ACT TO PROHIBIT STATE AGENCIES AND OTHER PUBLIC ENTITIES FROM USING TAX DOLLARS TO PURCHASE OR DISTRIBUTE MATERIAL THAT CONTAINS, OR PRESENTS AS FACTUAL, INFORMATION WHICH HAS BEEN PROVEN FALSE OR FRAUDULENT”
The original url showed that it was written specifically with the teaching of evolution in mind.
Some of my friends have said, “Go for it!” since there is no way evolution could be prohibited under that wording.
However a few days ago the bill failed – again the urls have expired, too. Here’s a bit from an Arkansas newspaper:
Evolution proposal shot down in House
By MICHAEL ROWETT
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
The Arkansas House of Representatives narrowly rejected a
bill Friday that would require that when public schools refer to evolution, they identify it as an unproven theory.
The bill also would ban the use of public funds to present
as factual evolution-related information that the bill labels false or fraudulent.
Now it is being re-written:
http://www.ardemgaz.com/today/ark/B01yxgr-evolutionwksu2.html
Evolution bill focus to be changed
SETH BLOMELEY
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
The Arkansas House member sponsoring a bill to require that evolution be referred to as a theory in public schools said Friday that he plans to water down his bill to require only that the Department of Education study the
accuracy of textbooks. Rep. Jim Holt, R-Springdale, said he’ll ask the House today to expunge the March 23 vote that defeated his bill. “It’s going to actually make it to where [the department] can make sure they’re using our taxpayer dollars in a wise manner and to make sure the materials used are accurate,” Holt said.
This article was published on Monday, April 2, 2001
The watered down version looks nearly meaningless so the next question was, “What’s the makeup of the Ark. Dept of Education?”
According to http://arkedu.state.ar.us/arkansas1.htm, the Arkansas Board of Education “is the policy making body for public elementary and secondary education in Arkansas”. There used to be 12 members on the Board, but this number is in the process of being reduced to 9 through attrition. Members are appointed for six-year terms by the
governor. The current (Republican) governor is Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister.
How do we put a stop to this? When is it going to end? Would ejecting Arkansas from the USA be all that difficult or all that bad a thing? Would making the best of their tax dollars start with ejecting Rep. Jim Holt from the House?
Jois