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“$100,000 for Louisiana Family Forum, to develop a plan to promote better science education”

Sponsor: Sen. Vitter (R-LA)  

(3 Comments)

Recipient Web Site:  Recipient Address:  ^(Flag) Recipient address as provided by Sponsor(s): (courtesy of Taxpayers for Common Sense) Short Description of Recipient Organization:  Research contributed by:

kerry wrote:

Mentioned here: <a href="http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/vitter_earmarked_federal_money.html">http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/vitter_earmarked_federal_money.html</a>

posted September 23, 2007 at 9:46 p.m.

kerry wrote:

"The earmark appears to be the latest salvo in a decades-long battle over science education in Louisiana, in which some Christian groups have opposed the teaching of evolution and, more recently, have pushed to have it prominently labeled as a theory with other alternatives presented. Educators and others have decried the movement as a backdoor effort to inject religious teachings into the classroom."

posted September 23, 2007 at 9:47 p.m.

Bill_Allison wrote:

Looking at the group's <a href="http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/721/721416555/721416555_200512_990.pdf">Form 990</a> from 2005 (the most current year available), a couple of things pop out at me:

1. No reference to creation science, but plenty of info about generic family values and abstinence only programs (that seems to be their top issue in terms of expenditures -- $290K out of a budget of $374K); from 2001 to 2005, they never raised more than $400K, meaning that Vitter's earmark would have been a significant chunk of change to the group; they're hooked in with a group called Louisiana Family Forum Action, which, at least in 2005, had people registered to lobby the state government on its behalf (see <a href="http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/201/201380165/201380165_200512_990O.pdf">here</a>, starting around page 14 of 38...).

posted September 24, 2007 at 4:56 p.m.