Classroom challenge to evolution passes easily
Capitol Spotlight for weeklies for week of March 5, 2006
By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureau
A classroom challenge to Darwinian evolution passed the House in a walk, although questions were raised about local control, the threat of lawsuits and problems with advocates of Islamic or alien beliefs about the origin of life.
The Academic Freedom Act, House Bill 2107 by Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, would protect teachers who "present scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views." It went to the Senate, where similar measures have failed in the past, on a 77-10 vote.
While similar measures in other states have called for teaching Intelligent Design as an alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, Kern insisted her bill "does not have as a purpose to teach religion."
"I don't want to teach alternatives to evolution," she said. "I want our students to learn more about evolution, not less." 
Science, she said, must be "observable, repeatable and testable."
Rep. James Covey, D-Custer City, said he was not so concerned about much of the bill, "but I care about local control."
"Why have we left the school boards out of this?" asked Rep. Lucky Lamons, D-Tulsa.
Kern said the bill asks only that local school boards provide "good, honest science."
Keith Ballard, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, said the organization would advise local boards to be cautious about litigation, such as that brought successfully against the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania.
The Oklahoma bill, he said, "certainly looks like Intelligent Design."
"Also, there are legitimate places to teach intelligent design - in history classes, philosophy classes - without violation of the separation of church and state," he said.
 Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Louisiana case of Edwards vs. Aguillar that a law could not constitutionally "be used to advance religious views."
This bill does not do that, Kern said, but it does prevent students who object to evolutionary dogma from "being told to sit down and be quiet, and that happens."
Several House members arguing for the bill voiced religious views.
Rep. Pam Peterson, R-Tulsa, said if such a law had been in effect when she was in class 36 years ago she would not have been ridiculed for suggesting that unusual life forms reached Australia through the Biblical flood.
Rep. Ray McCarter, D-Marlow, forecast the outcome by prefacing the first question with, "I'm going to vote for it."
He said he learned his lesson when he voted against an anti-gay marriage amendment by former Rep. Bill Graves, R-Oklahoma City. It brought him an opponent in the next election and cost him $35,000 to keep his seat.
Rep. Danny Morgan, D-Prague, pictured a "slippery slope" where Islamic students or those believing in alien theories now abundant on the Internet might disrupt classes.
 Rep. Al Lindley, D-Oklahoma City, arguing against the bill, said he was a Lutheran and believes that God created heaven and earth, "but I can't prove it."
 A vote against the bill, he said, would be seen as a vote against God. He voted yes.
"I don't want to feed the fire," he said. "I believe that something like Rep. Kern wants belongs in a religion course, not in a science course."
Similar efforts in other states have been promoted by the Discovery Institute of Seattle.
The ACLU distributed an AP story saying the Dover Area School Board had the previous day agreed to pay $1 million in legal fees to plaintiffs who sued to end Intelligent Design as an alternative.  ID is a concept maintaining that life forms are too complex to have derived from natural selection.

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Give an agency 30 days to come up with a record, and that's probably just when you'll get it, a House committee was told.
The House Rules Committee advanced a bill with the 30-day requirement by Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, who said he became interested in the issue when it took him three years to get a response to an Open Records Act request. He said he was willing to continue working on the bill.
It still needs work, Oklahoma Press Association Executive Vice President Mark Thomas, told the panel.
The OPA wants public access to the records in a "prompt and reasonable" order, in electronic form if possible. If an agency can't do that it should have to explain why not.
The temptation might be to take 30 days even if the record and a copier are right there at the time, Thomas said.
The bill goes to the House floor, where it could be amended before going to the Senate.
HHH
The Senate Education Committee approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would end the concept of forced school consolidation forever.  
"Every year, the threat of forced school consolidation hangs over the heads of rural communities and rural families," said Sen. J. Paul Gumm, D-Durant, author of SJR 35.
Should it be approved by both houses, it would be placed on the 2006 election ballot.

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