I’ll be in Winter Park today at the Central Florida Freethought Community’s Darwin Day event. When it’s my turn to take the mic at about 2:30, I’ll talk about whether evolution is being taught in schools, a brief history of anti-evolution efforts in Florida and then wrap up with a shameless plug for Florida Citizens for Science’s need for support as we defend against current and future anti-science attacks.

One of those potential attacks is the Religious Liberty bill filed in the senate and house. The Christian Post has taken note of the bill and Florida Citizens for Science’s concerns:

Advocacy group Florida Citizens for Science, which pushed for state science standards that required the teaching of evolution, said the bills could spell trouble for science education in Florida’s public schools.

“This bill is not strictly an anti-science or creationist one, but it certainly can be used for those purposes if signed into law as is,” the group wrote on its blog.

And the house sponsor, Rep. Kimberly Daniels, has an interesting quote in another news story at WUSF:

She flatly rejects the notion of separation of church and state.

“How can a state fund and have chaplains in prisons and not have chaplains in schools? A child should not have to wait to go to prison to meet a chaplain. And I think that says it all.”

I hope to see you at today’s Darwin Day event and I look forward to a lively discussion!