Louisiana Coalition for Science

“This bill is not about teaching creationism or religion.” — Rev. Gene Mills, Louisiana Family Forum Hammond Daily Star, 4/11/08

Update 6/1/10: The photo above is linked to Focus on the Family’s YouTube interview of Rev. Mills. In this interview, he explains that God is working through him in the Louisiana Family Forum’s public policy initiatives:

FOF Interviewer: What keeps you motivated? . . . What keeps you in the fight? What gives you energy?

Rev. Mills: You know, I find my inspiration in scripture, where it says that God’s purposes are found in me, and I best accomplish it when I’m expressing that witness or providing that testimony to those who need to know. And this is one way in which I can fulfill that basic life purpose — is expressing truth in the arenas where it doesn’t often go, including the public policy arena.

By Barbara Forrest

Ever since the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) was introduced and subsequently enacted into law in 2008, the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), which “drafted and promoted” the bill, has sworn to high heaven (so to speak), that this legislation had not a thing to do with religion. The above statement by Rev. Gene Mills in his letter to the Hammond Daily Star is the most prominent and direct denial. (Mills wrote the letter in an effort to do some quick damage control after Sen. Ben Nevers told the newspaper that he introduced the bill because the LFF thought that “scientific data related to creationism should be discussed [in public schools] when dealing with Darwin’s theory.”) A year after penning this denial, Mills told Gambit Weekly pretty much the same thing. According to GW,

The bill’s original creator, the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), a self-described ‘voice for traditional families in Louisiana,’ insists the new law is religiously neutral. According to the Rev. Gene Mills, the group’s director, ‘As written, it’s bulletproof.’ [bold added]

But as an analysis [pdf] of the LSEA shows, and as Mills himself later confirmed in a way that leaves no doubt, the Louisiana Science Education Act is all about religion.

In December 2008-January 2009, Mills was busily attempting — successfully, as it turned out — to gut the policy that had been proposed for Bulletin 741, the Louisiana Handbook for School Administrators, which would govern the implementation of the LSEA in public schools. As drafted by the Louisiana Dept. of Education [pdf], the policy would have specifically prohibited teachers from (1) promoting religion under the guise of teaching “critical thinking” and (2) supplementing the curriculum with “materials that teach creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind.” These were precisely the parts of the policy to which Mills objected, as he told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser in January 2009:

Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative Christian group that supported the law, said . . . that he was unhappy with some of the policy language prepared for discussion at a December [2008] meeting of the BESE committee. . . . Mills declined to discuss his specific objections. ‘I would just summarize it this way,’ he said. ‘I would think that it left religious neutrality and took a tone of religious hostility. Or at least it could be interpreted by some to have done that.’ [bold added]

Mills wanted the two above prohibitions removed from the policy, and the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) unanimously gave him what he wanted. But consider his reason: he interpreted a justifiable attempt to prevent religious beliefs from being taught to children as science in public schools as hostility to religion. Why would he have taken this position if the LSEA were not an attempt to promote religion? The answer is, of course, that he would have no reason to object unless the LSEA were precisely an attempt to promote religion.

An even more important — and directly relevant — question is why a minister who homeschools his younger children and sends his older ones to a private Christian high school is so concerned about what is going on in public schools. (Mills publicized his children’s educational arrangements in his December 2008 “Christmas Letter” to his supporters.) He is so concerned, in fact, that he successfully commandeered the policy governing what other people’s children are being taught about science in public schools. The answer to this latter question is clear: Rev. Gene Mills, who does not allow public schools to educate his own children, nonetheless wants to use public education — and the public policymaking process — to carry out LFF’s mission:

Our Mission is to persuasively present biblical principles in the centers of influence.

The Religious Right has long seen public schools as an important center of influence for indoctrinating young minds. (Texas is a perfect example. See here and here.) Anyone who doubts that religion is Mills’ explicit motivation need only consult the list [pdf] of 2010 bills that LFF asked its supporters to follow in the legislature. Bills in which the LFF has an interest are grouped into categories. The final category, under which four bills are listed, is entitled “Biblical Worldview” [pdf].

The wording of the LSEA itself reflects the LFF’s and its co-author, the Discovery Institute’s, preoccupation with religion. The legislation stipulates that the LSEA “shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.” (This wording comes straight from the Discovery Institute’s “Model Academic Freedom Statute on Evolution.”) The façade of religious neutrality in the disclaimer is just that — a façade. If religious neutrality were truly the goal, there need be no mention of religion in the legislation at all. Legislation intended only to enhance the teaching of science requires no religious disclaimer. Including it in the LSEA is merely the LFF’s and the Discovery Institute’s transparent attempt at pre-emptive legal self-defense. People who are not trying to sneak religion into public institutions can simply remain silent on the subject. But the creationists at the LFF and the Discovery Institute hath protested a bit too much for their disavowals of religious intent to be credible.

This is nothing new, however. Creationists always talk too much, and Rev. Mills is no exception. He, like all Religious Right leaders, has no choice. He must constantly reassure LFF’s supporters (aka financial donors and foot soldiers who help them lobby legislators) that LFF is toiling in the halls of the Capitol doing the Lord’s work. So in his December 22, 2009, Christmas e-newsletter, an excerpt of which is below (with color highlighting added here for emphasis), Rev. Mills provided a list of the LFF’s accomplishments, which included the successful commandeering of the BESE policy governing implementation of the LSEA. And he made it very clear that the real credit for this accomplishment goes to . . .  Jesus Christ.

‘Now to him who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all that we can hope or imagine, according to the power which works in us.’ — Ephesians 2:20

‘Now to Him‘ –Isn’t that the authentically real reason for this season? Jesus’ birth—the Advent— and even the vision placed in the hearts of the founders of Louisiana Family Forum was inspired by ‘Him!’ We celebrate ‘Him‘ individually and organizationally!

‘Who is able’—Because of Him, LFF’s accomplishments are many in 2009:

• Crafted the only congressional redistricting plan under consideration,
• Fought for and won the largest tax rollback for families in Louisiana history,
• Fought for and won the health professional’s Rights of Conscience Protections, and
• Advanced classroom-ready Louisiana Science Education Rules through the perilous State Board of Education process!
  

Rev. Mills has exaggerated just a bit here. There was nothing “perilous” in the LFF’s advancing those “classroom-ready” rules for implementing the LSEA. Courtesy of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, taking control of BESE’s LSEA policy was a freaking cakewalk, as the Baton Rouge Advocate clearly recognized:

The list of the weak-kneed on this issue gets longer and longer every time it is discussed. Not only the BESE members but state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek acquiesced in the lobbying from creationism backers such as the Louisiana Family Forum. The latter is a particularly influential backer of Jindal. Three members of the 11-member BESE are Jindal appointees.

BESE joins the ranks of the wimps who have rolled over on the issue of creationism.

In the Christmas newsletter, Mills also informed readers that LFF had learned from a survey of its supporters what “God’s Spirit moved” them to ask the LFF to include on its “to do” list for 2010. God had moved LFF’s supporters to request that it “double LFF’s pastors network,” “recruit and train citizen activists,” and “grow [LFF's] legislative team.” He signed off by reminding readers of an important, looming deadline:

P.P.S. Year end gifts will be graciously received until midnight December 31st.

So there you have it, fellow citizens. Jesus is the reason for the season — and for BESE’s unanimous decision to give control of science education policy to Rev. Gene Mills.