House passes Textbook Committee bill

Thursday, April 6th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A proposal to require Oklahoma science textbooks to acknowledge "that human life was created by one God of the universe" has been passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

The House addressed the issue of creationism on Wednesday in an amendment to a bill dealing with the embattled State Textbook Committee. Last year, the committee ordered biology books to carry a disclaimer about the teaching of evolution that described it as a "controversial theory."

The disclaimers were scrapped after Attorney General Drew Edmondson said the committee has no authority to require them.

But House members came to the committee's rescue when they approved an amendment by Rep. Jim Reese, R-Nardin.

The amendment, approved by voice vote, says "the committee shall ensure" that science textbooks it approves for use in public schools "include acknowledgment that human life was created by one God of the universe."

The House went a step further when it passed an amendment by Rep. John Wright, R-Broken Arrow, that gives the committee" authority to insert a one-page summary, opinion or disclaimer into any textbook reviewed and authorized for use in the public schools of Oklahoma."

The measure's House author, Rep. Barbara Staggs, D-Muskogee, said she "has a great deal of trouble" with Wright's amendment and predicted it will be pulled from the bill when it is sent to a joint House-Senate conference committee.

Staggs said the committee also will look at the Reese's amendment.

The original intent of the bill, Senate Bill 1139 by Sen. Johnnie Crutchfield, D-Ardmore, and Grover Campbell, R-Owasso, was to require that two members of the textbook committee be elementary-level teachers and two be secondary-level teachers.

Reese said his amendment is designed to balance the teaching of evolution in Oklahoma's public schools. Reese said evolution, which teaches that man evolved from more primitive species, contradicts the Christian belief that God created man.

"We're talking about it's OK to teach evolution and not OK to teach creationism," Reese said. The theory of evolution is questioned by creationists who generally believe that a divine power created the universe in six days.

Reese scoffed at suggestions that his amendment would violate the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state.

"If we're able to say we're one nation under God," Reese said, referring to the pledge of allegiance, "I have a hard time believing that it would be a violation of church and state."

Wright said his amendment does not require that disclaimers be placed on textbooks. And he rejected suggestions by Staggs that it is an attempt to censor textbooks.

"How would it be censorship by offering another opinion?" Wright said. "That's entrusting people to have enough sense to sort through and weigh the opinions."

The amended bill passed 99-0. But the House deadlocked 49-49 to defeat a separate amendment by Reese to restore the bill's title and enacting clause, meaning it will be sent to a conference committee for more work.