On January 5th, 2010, Mississippi State Representative Gary Chism introduced House Bill 46, which has a summary that reads "To provide that the sale of utilities to churches shall be exempt from sales taxation; and for related purposes". On January 12, Mr. Chism introduced House Bill 586, which will require biology teachers to "present scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution."Mr. Chism is a social conservative and on more than one occasion he has introduced bills that blur the line between the Constitutional idea of state-church separation. Several of our readers here at Mississippi Atheists took an active role in spreading the word about House Bill 25, a bill introduced by Mr. Chism which threatened science education in Mississippi. That bill died in committee. Mr. Chism told a reporter at the website OneNewsNow that House Bill 25 was used to test the waters in preparation for a bill requiring that Mississippi schools teach "the strengths and weaknesses of evolution" some time in 2010. He wasn't kidding. It is time to spread the word once again.
The new rallying cry of the Creationist movement is to "teach the controversy". Without out a doubt, there is a controversy: the theory of evolution is in direct contrast to a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of the Bible, which many people still believe to be the inerrant in all factual detail. This is certainly a discussion for the social studies classroom, but not the biology laboratory. Within the scientific community, there is no controversy: the theory of evolution is currently our best explanation for describing the observed phenomena of natural selection, random mutation, and adaptation. If there is a "scientifically sound argument" that anything biologists have observed really wasn't observed, I want to know about it. Arguments against evolution should be coming from real scientists doing real laboratory work, not from lawmakers forcing their ideology into high school classrooms or traveling preachers who mislead people on science despite having a PhD in biology.
With House Bill 46, he continues this tradition of giving preferential treatment to religious organizations. This is the key portion of the bill:
Gross income from sales to chruches[sic] exempt from federal income taxation under USCS Section 501(c)(3) of electricity, current, power, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas or other fuel for heating, lighting or other use, and sales of potable water to such churches shall be excluded form taxable gross income of the business.What Mr. Chism is proposing with this law is that business do not have to pay taxes associated with income received in the sales of utilities to churches, but he makes no mention of secular organizations which are also classified under Section 501(c)(3). If this bill were to go into effect, it would encourage utility companies to provide more support to religious organizations than to secular organizations. I would encourage the Mississippi State Legislature to amend this bill by striking the occurrences of "churches" and replacing those occurrences with "nonprofit organizations". Or just let the bill die in committee.
Mr. Chism has a history of introducing bills which support the religious right ideology, but most of these unconstitutional bills die in committee. We can write, call, and e-mail our legislators and local newspaper editors to restart the dialog about the importance of science education in Mississippi, or we can take our chances and do nothing. As with HB25, we will be posting our letters on this site and encourage you to write your own.
Subscribe to Mississippi Atheists