Title: Creationism and the First Amendment | National Center for Science Education
Headings: Creationism and the First Amendment
Creationism and the First Amendment
The Free Exercise Argument
The Creationism Is Science Argument
The Evolution Is Humanism Argument
The First Amendment and Science

Content: And since the courts have already ruled, according to Bird (Y-article, p. 563), that it would be unreasonable to give equal time to all religious theories of origins, public school teachers would not have to master the many mythological accounts of creation. It would suffice if they were to master only one: the alternative view known as scientific creationism, a scientific model fully on a par with evolution and a benefit to no particular religion. Suppose, however, that the schools, courts, and a majority of the parents of public school children were not to agree that scientific creationism is scientific or on a par with evolution and that they were to recognize its clear benefits to the literalist, fundamentalist, evangelical wing of Christianity? What then? Bird points out that the Constitution does not require states to provide public school (Y-article, pp. 565-566, fn. 262). Furthermore, states have the authority to abolish
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instruction in a topic or a discipline in public school curricula. If instruction in origins were to become too expensive due to litigation or too divisive in the communities of a state to make it worth retaining, such instruction could simply be eliminated.