Page 47 - Heavenly Signs III by Mel Gable

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fundamentalist on the basis of a request from the Greater Little Rock Evangelical Fellowship. It was for the
introduction of legislation based on a “model act” prepared using material from the Institute for Creation
Research. It was opposed by many religious organizations and other groups. Judge William Overton handed
down a decision on January 5, 1982 giving a clear, specific definition of science as a basis for ruling that creation
science is religion and is simply not science. The ruling was not binding on schools outside the Eastern District
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of Arkansas but had considerable influence on subsequent rulings on the teaching of creationism.
Arkansas did not appeal the decision and it was not until the 1987 case of Edwards v. Aguillard, which dealt with a
similar law passed by the State of Louisiana, that teaching “creation science” was ruled unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court, making that determination applicable nationwide.

The Louisiana “balanced treatment” Act of 1981 was less restrictive than the Arkansas one, since its call for
teaching creation science merely meant talking about the “scientific evidences for creation and inferences from those scientific
evidences.” This gave its backers initial hopes that it would survive constitutional challenge. Nevertheless, the
historical record of religious based efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution had started with the other
trials. It was too heavy a baggage for these efforts to overcome. It had become increasingly difficult to argue that
the fight against the teaching of evolution was not religion based. This resulted in the dooming of the Louisiana
statute. The Louisiana Act, like its Arkansas counterpart, was overturned by a U.S. District Court. The case was
then appealed to a Federal Appeals Court, where the District Court ruling was upheld by a narrow 8-7 margin.
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The ruling was one in a series of developments addressing issues related to the American creationist movement
and the separation of church and state. The scope of the ruling affected state schools and did not include
independent schools, home schools, Sunday schools and Christian schools, all of whom remained free to teach
creationism. But, the majority of our children are taught through public schools. It first started with taking prayer
out of school which is later followed by there is no Creator. What a deception our government has created.

Courts – “Intelligent Design”

It is in the light of all these U.S. Supreme Court precedents that the intelligent design creationism movement
came about. It was designed specifically to overcome these restrictions, especially those that had been enunciated
in the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard ruling. Within two years of the ruling a creationist textbook was produced: Of
Pandas and People which attacked evolutionary biology without mentioning the identity of the supposed “intelligent
designer.” Drafts of the text used “creation” or “creator” before being changed to “intelligent design” or “designer” after
the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling. This form of creationism, known as intelligent design creationism was developed
in the early 1990s. This would eventually lead to another court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which
went to trial on September 26, 2005 and was decided in U.S. District Court on December 20, 2005 in favor of
the plaintiffs. They charged that a mandate for intelligent design be taught was an unconstitutional establishment
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of religion.

In 2002, William (Bill) Buckingham and Alan Bonsell, members of the Dover Area School District Board of
Education who were young earth creationists, had made various statements supporting teaching creationism
alongside evolution. At a board meeting on June 7, 2004, Buckingham mentioned creationism and raised

65 Creationism/ID, A Short Legal History By Lenny Flank, Talk Reason

66 Justice Brennan misnamed the statute as the "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School
Instruction Act"
67 "Creationist lawsuit against UC system to proceed". National Center for Science Education. 2006-08-10.