Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee succeeded in passing such laws.
Fundamentalist anti-evolution literature, such as T. T. Martin's Hell and the High Schools: Christ or Evolution—Which? (1923), equated Darwinism with atheism and fueled the drive to ban the teaching of evolution. (Pastor Martin showed up at the Scopes trial to promote his writings and expound on his philosophy.) In Kentucky attempts to pass a law prohibiting the teaching of "Darwinism, Atheism, Agnosticism, or the theory of Evolution as it pertains to man" were narrowly defeated, thanks to active opposition.
In contrast to the situation in Kentucky, opposition to the fundamentalists in Tennessee was negligible. A 1925 Tennessee law, written by state representative John Washington Butler and passed by a wide margin, made it illegal to teach "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." The penalty for a teacher convicted of violating the Butler Act was a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500. When Governor Austin Peay signed the bill on March 21, 1925, he said that in all probability the law would never be actively applied or enforced, but the St.
This is a free page. This page contains 190 words. This
article contains 1,923 words (approx. 6 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our The Scopes Trial Highlights the Battle Over Evolution Access Pass.
