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Victory for Creationism in European Schools

Jay Sekulow/AH : Jul 13, 2007
American Center for Law and Justice

"This is a significant victory for academic freedom and represents our worldwide efforts to protect not only academic freedom, but freedom of association and intellectual pursuit. Prohibiting discussions of creationism in classrooms throughout Europe is nothing short of censorship...."

(Washington, DC)—When legislation was proposed in Strasbourg, entitled: The Dangers of Creationism in Education, which would—if enacted—cover the entire Council of Europe...the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) sprang into action.

The bill would have made the discussion of Intelligent Design illegal, in European classrooms. However, the ECLJ, the European counterpart to the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), quickly produced and distributed a 14-page document which effectively showed that "to censor discussion and teaching of creationism would violate the spirit as well as the letters of democracy enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter on the Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Asserting that the Parliamentary Assembly should reject the resolution against Creationism, the ECLJ pointed out that the measure would only hamper the "educational progress of students by restricting their examination of competing scientific ideas and would necessarily violate the freedom of expression, including academic freedom, as well as the right to the free exercise of religion."

On Thursday, the ACLJ and ECLJ were happy to report that the resolution was defeated.

In his trial notebook, Jay Sekulow—Chief Counsel for the ACLJ—wrote: "This is a significant victory for academic freedom and represents our worldwide efforts to protect not only academic freedom, but freedom of association and intellectual pursuit. Prohibiting discussions of creationism in classrooms throughout Europe is nothing short of censorship. We were very pleased that this resolution was withdrawn after our document was circulated amongst the members of Parliament of the Council of Europe."