Thirty-six scientific, educational, civil liberties and religious organizations have signed a letter (full text) to each member of the U.S. Senate urging the Senate to remove an earmark currently found in the House Committee Report on the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill. Under the House proposal, $100, 000 would go to the Louisiana Family Forum, a group promoting creationism, for it to use "to develop a plan to promote better science education." (See prior posting.) The letter argues that "federal funding of LLF's efforts to introduce creationism in public-school science classrooms will ... harm the religious liberty of students and their families" and "will weaken rather than strengthen science education". In a release discussing the letter, Americans United For Separation of church and State argued that LLF's "goal is to spread fundamentalist dogma, not enhance scientific literacy." [Thanks to Alliance Alert for the lead.]
UPDATE: Americans United announced on Thursday that the earmark's sponsor, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, requested that it be removed from the bill and that the funds instead be directed to another Louisiana project. Vitter said that the earmark had not been intended to promote creationism.
