Miami Herald’s Fred Grimm takes on “monkey bills”

Fred Grimm over at the Miami Herald has a column published entitled “Fighting evolution one monkey law at a time.”

Model bills bounce around from one whacked-out legislature to another. If evolution went down in Tennessee in 2012, you can pretty well figure that the Florida Legislature will be rethinking the origins of the species in 2013.

Last year, Sen. Stephen Wise of Jacksonville attempted to push an anti-evolution bill through the Florida Legislature, saying, “Why do we still have apes if we came from them?” You can figure creationists will be reprising those Wise words next year.

Actually, that is inaccurate. Wise said that apes quote in support of his 2009 antievolution bill. When he promoted his 2011 antievolution bill, he claimed that there was the theory of evolution and then there was a “non-evolution” “theory of whatever.” You can’t blame Grimm for getting it all confused, though. It’s basically all the same smoke and mirrors.

The Legislature also added Amendment Eight, dubbed as the “Religious Freedom Amendment,” to the fall ballot, which, with obtuse language, removes the old state constitutional prohibition on giving tax dollars going to “any church, sect, or religious denomination.”

That’s really about state money (think vouchers) going to religious schools, where teachers are already free to ignore Charlie Darwin and all that inconvenient monkey business.

About Brandon Haught

Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.
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