Bill to repeal state's creationism law fails

BATON ROUGE — God, science and legislators battled Tuesday evening as a bill by Sen. Dan Claitor's, R-Baton Rouge, to repeal a state law that was ruled unconstitutional that required Louisiana schools to teach creationism failed 4-2 in a Senate Education Committee hearing.

Claitor's legislation was a part of a series of bills proposed to remove “dead laws” from the state's record books, mostly those that have been ruled unconstitutional. The Louisiana's Balanced Treatment of Creation-Science Act was found to be unconstitutional in the 1987 case of Edwards v. Aguillard.

Freshman Sen. John Milkovich, D-Shreveport, engaged in a back and forth with Claitor over the concept of constitutionality and morality, pointing to slavery, which he noted was constitutional at one point in this nation’s history, and later arguing archaeological and scientific evidence proved the possibility of instantaneous creation of life and the great flood from the Book of Genesis in the Bible.

"Religion is not on trial here," Claitor retorted. "Am I to say how many times I go to confession during the week, and during the session God knows it should be a lot more."

This is the second time Claitor's legislation to repeal the unconstitutional law failed to get a committee approval.  In this latest case, he emphasized the bill would not prohibit religious teachings at public schools.

"It's fine if in certain areas you want to teach religion in your social studies class or geography class. I'm not trying to touch that. But if you are asking for my personal opinion, science is what should be taught in the classroom."