{"id":2594,"date":"2017-03-09T18:27:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T23:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2594"},"modified":"2017-03-09T18:27:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T23:27:56","slug":"religious-liberties-bill-on-a-fast-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2594","title":{"rendered":"Religious Liberties bill on a fast track"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"senate\"<\/a>The\u00c2\u00a0Religious Expression in Public Schools bill<\/a> 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<\/a> and urge them to amend or stop this bill due to concerns over its impact on science education.<\/p>\n

The meeting is during my spring break, which gives me an opportunity to possibly attend and speak there. If anyone else can attend, please let me know.<\/p>\n

For your convenience, below are the two main points we need to make to the senators. You can also see all of our posts about this bill in the Religious Liberties Act 2017<\/a> blog category.<\/p>\n

First, we are concerned about this line in the proposed bills: “A school district may not discriminate against a student, parent, or school personnel on the basis of a religious viewpoint or religious expression.” Does this allow teachers or other school personnel to state unscientific religious views on science topics such as age of the earth and evolution? If anyone tries to correct the teacher’s statement, would that be seen as discriminating against the teacher?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second, we are concerned about this section of the proposed bills: “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.” Does this allow students to give unscientific religious views as answers on questions about science topics such as age of the earth and evolution? If a teacher tries to explain to the student how the religious answer is unscientific and incorrect, would the teacher be seen as discriminating against the student?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The above questions in bold are valid, keeping in mind that the bill sponsor, Sen. Dennis Baxley, has been documented saying<\/a> that he would like to see the teaching of evolution balanced with other views. Furthermore, a similar bill in Kentucky was supported by a lawmaker<\/a> who admitted that students should be allowed to say the earth is only 6,000 years old and any attempt to correct the student would be seen as “retaliation.”<\/p>\n

Now is the time to start calling and emailing the senators on the judiciary committee. Don’t wait. Do it now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … 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-FQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2620,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2620","url_meta":{"origin":2594,"position":0},"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":2579,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2579","url_meta":{"origin":2594,"position":1},"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":2594,"position":2},"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":2615,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2615","url_meta":{"origin":2594,"position":3},"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":[]},{"id":2597,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2597","url_meta":{"origin":2594,"position":4},"title":"House version of the Religious Liberties bill now moving","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"We've been tracking the Senate version of the\u00c2\u00a0Religious Expression in Public Schools\u00c2\u00a0bill, which has successfully navigated one committee hearing and is headed for its next one next week. We are concerned with two troubling parts of the bill that could have negative implications for science education. Please see our previous\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":2572,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2572","url_meta":{"origin":2594,"position":5},"title":"Update: Religious Liberties bill","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"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 on March 6 at 1:30 p.m. Many bills are filed\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594"}],"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=2594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions\/2616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}