6 Biggest Religious Right Threats to America

By Simon Brown

January 3, 2013  |  Multiple courts have said “no” to states that want public schools to teach “intelligent design” creationism in science classes, but that doesn’t faze Montana State Rep. Clayton Fiscus (R-Billings).

Fiscus, a Tea Party favorite whose professional background is in real estate, asked the legislative services staff of the Montana House of Representatives in November to come up with a bill for the 2013 legislative session that would “require public schools to teach intelligent design along with evolution.”

Lawmakers like Fiscus often push their agenda in defiance of established constitutional law, and sometimes hope they can create a case to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn previous decisions that contradict their personal beliefs. Americans Uni­ted combated a wide array of state-level leg­islative schemes in 2012 that sought to tear down the critical safeguards that keep church and state separate.