Senate gives initial OK to 'origins' bill
The Senate provisionally passed SB96, sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, 17-12. The bill must be heard one more time, but votes are not expected to change, said Senate Majority Leader Peter C. Knudson, R-Brigham City.
Buttars slightly amended the bill on the Senate floor, injecting the word "scientific" into two sentences of the bill. So now, students are to critically analyze theories regarding the origins of life or current state of the human race, and consider opposing "scientific" viewpoints, and learn that not all scientists agree on which "scientific" theory is correct.
The State Board of Education is directed to establish curriculum requirements consistent with that language.
The changes, Buttars said, should satisfy the Utah Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other opponents that his motives are not religious in nature.
"My bill from the get-go never included anything about intelligent design, creationism or any faith-based philosophy. When the bill came out, everybody ignored that," he said.
But the ACLU isn't satisfied the bill would pass constitutional muster.
In a letter sent earlier this week, the ACLU noted the bill's language is similar to disclaimer stickers in Cobb County (Ga.) School District textbooks, which a court ruled "contains an implicit religious message . . . which is discernible after one considers the historical context of the statement that evolution is a theory but not a fact," states the letter signed by legal director Margaret Plane.
"I still think anyone could look at it and raise question about its constitutionality," Plane said after the debate. "It comes back to the question, what does this bill do?"
Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, believes the bill codifies current practice in public schools.
The origin of life is not addressed in the state's core curriculum.
But Darwin's theory of evolution is central to the high school biology core curriculum. Buttars has taken issue with that, saying the idea humans evolved from a lower species is not a proven fact. Friday, he noted a woman told him when her children were told "we evolved from a lower kind in school . . . it totally blew up their faith."
Buttars last August asked the State Board of Education to insert in curriculum language that humans didn't evolve from any other species. He also had publicly suggested that if students were learning human evolution, they be required to learn about intelligent design — or the idea that life is too complex to be explained by Darwin's theory alone — in a humanities or other class outside of science.
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