Barbara Forrest says there are two Louisianas. The southern half, a mélange of ethnicities of Spanish, French, Acadians and descendants of slaves, in which Catholic and African religious traditions intermingle. And then there is the northern half of the state with its white Anglo evangelical heritage.
It’s this divide that has made her state a hotbed for the religious right. The Louisiana Family Forum, a state affiliate of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family draws much of its support from northern evangelical conservatives and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal caters to it with his support of creationist causes.
Forrest tells me this as we’re driving around where she lives over the weekend, a place east of Baton Rouge, on a stretch of land that had been farmed by her husband’s family for generations. I’m on vacation down here and stopped by for a visit.
A philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, Forrest has been at the forefront of fundamentalist attacks on religion since she co-authored with Paul Gross, Creationism’s Trojan Horse, which connects the statements of the movement’s leaders, providing inescapably clear evidence that the intelligent design movement is religiously motivated.
She is also a gracious host. As we drive, Forrest points to the school in Livingston Parish where she first became involved in the issue when the board there tried to introduce creationism into its science classes. Today, as one of intelligent design movement’s most damning critics, a lot of people don’t like her very much, even though they must have to work pretty hard to come up with reasons to dislike her.
As we drive, Forrest keeps up a running narrative of the history of her state. We visit the state capitol and stand on the spot where Huey Long was assassinated. She speaks in the soft drawl and married her high school sweetheart. She will celebrate her 40th wedding anniversary in July.
Forrest says she believes that Louisiana’s battles have been overshadowed by the recent Texas textbook fight in which members of the Board of Education have been trying to sneak creationist language into the curriculum. With its incredible power over textbook publishers, Texas (which buys its books at the state level and is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the country next to California) has been grabbing the anti-evolution headlines. Meanwhile, Christian fundamentalists next door may soon quietly slip creationist friendly textbooks — under the guise of “supplemental materials” — into local school districts.
In 2008, lawmakers passed the Louisiana Science Education Act, which specifically targets “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” as subjects in which educators are required to “promote critical thinking skills.” It also requires “supplemental materials” to be used alongside textbooks in public school science class.
Forrest and the Louisiana Citizens for Science lobbied fiercely against the creationist language, but, in the end, only three members of the House voted against it because they feared crossing Jindal, who is closely allied the Louisiana Family Forum, the chief lobbyists of the bill.
Until recently, the fight had been over how the wording will be implemented and to develop a review process to make sure those “supplemental materials” aren’t just intelligent design books like the latest version of Pandas and People, which the Dover school board famously accepted for that purpose in 2004.
But the Louisiana Family Forum with assistance from the pro-ID Discovery Institute have convinced the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to let them stack the deck in their favor.
So, here’s where things stand now. When there’s a lawsuit, and there no doubt will be eventually, it’s going to be at the local school district level. And it’s going to only happen after a teacher hands out a bunch of religious tracts and starts telling kids that evolution is a lie. And some kid with the guts to stand up and challenge his teacher, a student willing to risk the inevitable hassling of his peers, is going to no doubt be the one to do it.
But until then, a lot of students in Louisiana may be indoctrinated with the message that they have to choose religion or science, but that they can’t embrace both.
