You may recall quite a lot of earlier discussion here (start here and follow links backwards for other posts) about Cobb Country, GA, and their “evolution is just a theory” sticker on textbooks.
Well, the case has been settled in federal court, and with a result that gives me another small bit of hope. Here’s a bit of the judge’s comments, pulled from a CNN article on the decision:
His conclusion, he said, “is not that the school board should not have called evolution a theory or that the school board should have called evolution a fact.”
“Rather, the distinction of evolution as a theory rather than a fact is the distinction that religiously motivated individuals have specifically asked school boards to make in the most recent anti-evolution movement, and that was exactly what parents in Cobb County did in this case,” he wrote.
“By adopting this specific language, even if at the direction of counsel, the Cobb County School Board appears to have sided with these religiously motivated individuals.”
The sticker, he said, sends “a message that the school board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists.”
“The school board has effectively improperly entangled itself with religion by appearing to take a position,” Cooper wrote. “Therefore, the sticker must be removed from all of the textbooks into which it has been placed.”
