He's BAACK

Chris Buttars is not a quitter, ya gotta give him that! From the daily herald:

Not a prayer

Sen. D. Chris Buttars somehow cannot resist sponsoring message bills that waste everyone's time.

The West Jordan Republican, having not learned his lesson with the defeat of his creationism bill in the 2006 session, Buttars is back again with another legislative solution desperately seeking a problem. He wants a state law to stipulate that individual expressions of religious faith are protected on public property.

Like last year's creationism bill, Senate Bill 111 was created with no intelligent design. It was inspired by an aggrieved constituent who claimed his child was barred from wearing a T-shirt displaying the acronym "CTR" in school. (Mormons, of course, recognize this as "Choose The Right," a slogan used in the LDS Church's Primary program.) The bill, Buttars explains on the Senate blog, would allow the government to ban religious expression only to further a compelling government interest and then only in the least restrictive way possible.

Forget about dogs that won't hunt. This is a bird that won't fly. It has wings of concrete, an easy mark for any lawyer -- which Buttars isn't. The First Amendment already protects an individual's right to wear a shirt with a religious message, to read a book about religion or to quietly pray in a public place. Buttars might have responded to his constituent that the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that students can express themselves as long as they don't disrupt school. But that would have taken away his opportunity for religious posturing.

Buttars shouldn't worry about schools becoming devoid of religious expression. As long as pop quizzes and football games exist, so will prayer.

In other news, a christian website finds the following:

ChristiaNet.com (http://www.christianet.com), the world's largest Christian portal with twelve million monthly pages loads recently conducted a poll asking participants to decide whether Creationism or Evolution should be taught to children in the classroom. Participants could also cast a vote in favor of both being taught or for neither choice. Voters were given the opportunity to comment about their selection. Because ChristiaNet's Internet community consists largely of people who claim to follow the Christian faith, the results of the poll were surprising.

Out of 527 participants, 269 believed that Creationism should be taught in the classroom. This figure represents just more than half of those taking the poll. Only 14 voted for an Evolution-only approach to teaching children about the beginnings and development of mankind. Thirty-four said the topic should not be discussed in school and avoided all together. The most surprising number, however, was the 210 participants who believed children should learn both theories. This number may represent an indecisiveness about Creationism among those who claim to be Christians.

Color me shocked on both these articles!

Cheers

Joe Meert