{"id":2572,"date":"2017-02-27T20:04:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T01:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2017-02-27T20:04:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T01:04:33","slug":"update-religious-liberties-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2572","title":{"rendered":"Update: Religious Liberties bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"baxley\"<\/a>A bad bill filed in the Florida Senate by Sen. Dennis Baxley that could potentially affect science education has taken its first step forward. SB 436, entitled the Religious Liberties bill<\/a>, is scheduled to be considered by the education committee on March 6 at 1:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Many bills are filed in the legislature that then die on the vine without even getting a hearing before a committee. The Religious Liberties bill’s move onto a committee calendar is a bad sign.<\/p>\n

Two main areas of concern we at Florida Citizens for Science have with this bill and its House counterpart, HB 303<\/a>, are the following:<\/p>\n

A school district may not discriminate against a student, parent, or school personnel on the basis of a religious viewpoint or religious expression.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

A student may express his or her religious beliefs in coursework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination. A student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homework and classroom assignments shall be evaluated, regardless of their religious content, based on expected academic standards relating to the course curriculum and requirements. A student may not be penalized or rewarded based on the religious content of his or her work if the coursework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments require a student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s viewpoint to be expressed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll repeat here what we noted earlier<\/a>: The first quoted sentence can kick open the door for creationists and even climate change deniers in instructional positions to freely express their anti-science views in the classroom.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, concerning the paragraph addressing student work, anti-science views expressed by students can be tempered with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153expected academic standards\u00e2\u20ac\u009d requirement. And keeping assignments fact based can eliminate anti-science \u00e2\u20ac\u0153student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s viewpoint\u00e2\u20ac\u009d issues. On the other hand, there is too much wiggle room in there that could allow students or their parents to make trouble for teachers teaching reality-based science. Even though teachers can use academic standards to defend themselves, this paragraph in the bill can still have a chilling effect on teachers who want to avoid conflicts.<\/p>\n

This bill is not strictly an anti-science or creationist one, but it certainly can be used for those purposes if signed into law as is. There is also the very real and dangerous possibility of the bill being amended and otherwise modified during the legislative session to include creationist and deceptively called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153academic freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d language.<\/p>\n

Please take a moment to read our related posts in the Religious Liberties Act 2017 category<\/a>. Then please take the time to contact the members of the Senate education committee<\/a> to express your concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bad bill filed in the Florida Senate by Sen. Dennis Baxley that could potentially affect science education has taken its first step forward. SB 436, entitled the Religious Liberties bill, is scheduled to be considered by the education committee … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-Fu","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2579,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2579","url_meta":{"origin":2572,"position":0},"title":"Religious Liberties Bill: Analysis and Fasting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I know. It's the weekend. You're recharging for the week ahead. But I have to ask you to do something on behalf of science education. I have to ask you to send some emails and make some calls. Yes, your voice matters and right now we really need it. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2582,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2582","url_meta":{"origin":2572,"position":1},"title":"Religious Liberties bill passes Senate education committee","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A bill that is potentially harmful to science education in Florida schools was reported favorably (in other words, it passed) by the Senate education committee today. The Religious Liberties bill was passed on a party-line vote of 5-2. The Senate bill still has to get through a judiciary committee meeting,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2620,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2620","url_meta":{"origin":2572,"position":2},"title":"Religious Liberties bill on Senate floor Tuesday","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a few quick updates on the\u00c2\u00a0Religious Expression in Public Schools bills that we're opposed to. First, the Senate version has been approved by all of its assigned committees and is now scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor tomorrow (Tuesday). If I understand the procedure, this is an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2594,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2594","url_meta":{"origin":2572,"position":3},"title":"Religious Liberties bill on a fast track","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The\u00c2\u00a0Religious Expression in Public Schools bill filed in the Florida Senate is now scheduled to be heard by the judiciary committee March 14 (Tuesday) at 2 p.m. We need you to contact the senators on the committee and urge them to amend or stop this bill due to concerns over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2551,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2551","url_meta":{"origin":2572,"position":4},"title":"“A solution in search of a problem”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science needs your help! It's going to be a busy year for us and we need all the vocal, passionate, action-oriented science advocates we can find to support our cause. Please read all the way to the end of this post and consider our call to action.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2615,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2615","url_meta":{"origin":2572,"position":5},"title":"Lots and lots of bill updates today","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite a bit to talk about today. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll start with the Religious Liberties bills that we oppose on the grounds they can negatively impact science education. One passed the Senate judiciary committee this afternoon on a narrow, party line vote of 5-4. I spoke at this meeting but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2573,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions\/2573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}