Class warfare: religious right legislators are trying different tactics to inject religion into public schools.

Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern said she has a calling--a calling to return America to its roots as a "Christian nation."

"I'm not the typical legislator," Kern said, according to a report last year in the Norman Transcript. "The Lord showed me right off the bat that I'm not supposed to be. As a matter of fact, my Lord made it very clear to me that I am a cultural warrior."

Kern, an Oklahoma City Republican, gained national notoriety for her views that homosexuality is worse than terrorism, and she has always been upfront about her belief that the United States should be based on Christianity.

"What made us great is that we were a nation founded on Christian principles," Kern told a crowd in January 2008. "If you go to the primary sources and read our Founding Fathers, what they had to say, they gave preferential treatment to Christianity."

The legislator's version of history runs counter to most historians, but she's still taking steps to put it into action. That's why Kern has introduced a bill that would inject religion into Oklahoma public schools.

HB 1001, the so-called "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act," is a sweeping measure that invites students to express religious viewpoints in the classroom or in assignments and prohibits students from being penalized for the religious content of their work. It also allows religious groups and clubs the same access to school facilities as secular groups and requires schools to incorporate policies that allow students to broadcast religious views over the loudspeakers.

Kern is not alone in her attempts to erode church-state separation in public schools. Her Religious Right counterparts across the country are introducing similar measures in their own state legislatures--pushing creationism in the science classroom and urging schools to include unconstitutional Bible study courses in their curriculum.

"These types of bills aren't going to go away," said Dr. Bruce Prescott, a member of Americans United's board of trustees and president of the Norman, Okla., AU chapter. "If they don't succeed with this, they will keep trying to find something else to get through, maybe under a different name."

Last year, another version of Kern's "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination" Act was vetoed by Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, who accurately insisted that students are already allowed to voluntarily express their faith and that the bill would subject school officials to "an explosion of costly and protracted litigation."

Finding Henry's veto to be "totally bogus," Kern brought the proposal back for another round, claiming on her Web site that all the bill does is codify U.S. Supreme Court decisions and guide school administrators.

Fortunately, as Church & State went to press, Kern's measure was rumored to be failing again.

According to a report by The Tulsa World, Oklahoma State Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee said, "I have a lot of concerns about that bill. Some who have worked in educational settings say it creates more problems than it solves.

"There is plenty of First Amendment protection already," he continued. "There are a lot of issues with that measure. I doubt that it would make it out of the Senate."

Coffee's stance may stem in part from the groundwork put in by Americans United and its allies. Prescott lobbied hard against the legislation in both this session and last. So did the Americans United legislative team.

"Last year, we learned that Coffee was reasonable to work with," said Prescott, who is also an ordained minister and executive director of Oklahoma Mainstream Baptists. "So we worked with him, and gave him the information the Americans United legislative team provided us. So we think that may have something to do with his recent statements."

Prescott said the school religion bill is part of a larger agenda.

"Sally is the ring leader in the 'Christian Nationalist' movement," he said. "What's happened in the last 30 years in Oklahoma is that a group of people seized political power and forced a majoritarian faith on the entire state, by force of legislation. Sally has a lot of influence."

Six states--Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Indiana, Kentucky and Arizona--also introduced similar "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination" bills this year.

Proponents claim these measures simply codify existing law to "protect" school boards in case they are sued.

As Kern's co-sponsor, Rep. Mike Reynolds, said about the Oklahoma bill, "There's nothing new about this bill. It makes it very clear that we agree with the Supreme Court."

If that's true, said AU's State Legislative Counsel Dena Sher, the bills are pointless. The measures are unnecessary to protect truly voluntary student expression, she noted, so there must be more at stake.

"These bills ask schools to create a model policy that provides students a forum to say anything, including praying, proselytizing or quoting the Bible," Sher said. "What they say will be deemed to be sponsored by the schools and that is unconstitutional."

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She added, "Schools have a responsibility to protect all students' religious liberties--not just those who hold 'positions of honor' and are chosen to speak. If a chosen speaker ended the morning announcements with a prayer to her 'Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,' how will Jewish, Hindu or Muslim students feel? How will their parents react?"

That's not the only threat out there. Several state legislatures are also considering so-called "academic freedom" bills that open the door to creationist concepts in the science classroom.

According to the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), the term "academic freedom" in the title or text of a bill is creationist code language. The terminology is used by groups such as the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that promotes "intelligent design" and coordinates these types of bills throughout the country.

By the end of last year's legislative sessions, "academic freedom" measures were considered in Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Michigan and South Carolina.

Louisiana succeeded in passing its scheme, and teachers are now allowed to introduce "supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials" about evolution. The law also requires teachers to find "effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied."

"Academic freedom" was the creationist catch phrase in 2008, but this year, that term is not always present in the current crop of creationist bills, according to the NCSE's Glenn Branch and Eugenic C. Scott in an article written for Scientific American. And popular creationist code language--such as asking schools to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution--has now been replaced with even more abstract terminology concocted by the Discovery Institute and its allies.

So far, Americans United's legislative department is tackling four bills in the "academic freedom" category: Oklahoma's "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act" (SB 320), Iowa's "Evolution Academic Freedom" (HB 183), Alabama's "Academic Freedom Act" (HB 300) and a measure in New Mexico (SB 433) that would allow teachers to inform students "about relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses" of evolution.

The political climate in some states makes defeating these antievolution measures an uphill battle, according to Victor Hutchison, professor emeritus in the zoology department of the University of Oklahoma.

Every year for the past 10 years, Hutchison has lobbied to stop these threats to science education in Oklahoma's public schools. He is founder and the former president of Oklahoma Excellence in Science Education (OESE), a group that puts on workshops for science teachers to better prepare them for teaching evolution.

"I know of many instances where teachers in Oklahoma are afraid to teach evolution," Hutchison said. "They never even mention the 'E' word for fear of parents, students or administrators.... This isn't going to stop being a problem in Oklahoma."

That's why Hutchison has written about this issue, passed out literature and talked to key legislators on the dangers of SB 320.

In an op-ed for The Oklahoma Observer, Hutchison and current OESE President Richard E. Broughton explained that there are no "scientific weaknesses" to evolution. Suggesting that there are will undermine students' understanding of science and their entire education.

"This [bill]," he concluded, "is part of a nationwide effort by the Discovery Institute ... to transform the United States into a fundamentalist Christian theocracy."

The Mississippi legislature also grappled with a creationist-backed bill this session. Rep. Gary Chism introduced HB 25 that would require the State Board of Education to include a disclaimer on the front cover of science textbooks.

It would read: "The word 'theory' has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations."

The Mississippi Education Committee also debated SB 2127, a bill allowing schools to offer a Bible course that teaches "the influence of the Old or New Testament on law, history, government, literature, art, music, customs, morals, values and culture."

According to AU's Sher, Bible courses must be academic, neutral and objective to pass constitutional muster in the federal courts.

"Bible courses cannot be used to push a narrow religious viewpoint," Sher said. "This bill would allow public schools to teach the moral code of a particular religion, something our Constitution does not allow."

Sher said Americans United is working to stop all of these threats to public education. She expects to see more church-state challenges aimed at the schools as the year goes on, and she is counting on AU's local chapters, members and allies in other organizations to help with grassroots lobbying.

Prescott is ready and willing to handle any more of these challenges in Oklahoma, not just because he believes these measures are unconstitutional, but also because he finds them offensive as a deeply religious person.

"Agents of the state have no business leading in acts of worship," he said. "When they do, they dilute it, demean and diminish religion. They just water it down until it is meaningless--and all for political power."