My religion doesn’t believe plagiarism is wrong and also commands its followers to smoke the sacred ganja at noon every day

Hey, what’s happening these days in the worst state ever, besides random acts of assault and battery on its manicured gridirons?

Glad you asked!

The Ohio State House recently passed a revised education bill, now on its way to the state senate, that includes some concerning language. Here is the relevant passage:

Assignment grades and scores shall be calculated using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, including any legitimate pedagogical concerns, and shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student’s work.

This masterpiece of wordsmithery passed on pretty much a straight party line vote.

The upshot I suppose is that the (unknown) percentage of Ohio’s overworked and underpaid public school teachers who aren’t fundie nutjobs will have to phrase questions along the lines of “According to contemporary scientific theory, the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.” That way Cletus and Lurleen can just report on how they’re being indoctrinated by the Frankfurt School’s atheistic vanguard, as opposed to being forced to affirmatively deny their own beliefs, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs-style.

Wait, that actually won’t work, because Young Earth Creationism is a contemporary scientific theory, certainly per its own self-understanding.

OK how about “According to mainstream contemporary scientific theory etc?”

No I don’t think that will work either, because to label something mainstream is to marginalize dissent from it, which is really the worst form of social persecution when you think about it. I mean that’s just science. Or sociology. Or the sociology of science.

I’m so confused now. I guess that’s what happens when you stuff kids’ heads full of Cartesian dualism, like they did to us back in the 1970s.