Bobby Jindal has avoided forums where he might be asked unscripted questions. His views on important issues makes his avoiding questions understandable. There is a striking contradiction between his education platform, Education Reform: Improving Education Opportunities for Louisiana's Children (http://bobbyjindal. com/downloads/Jindal_Education.pdf) and the Religious Right positions he endorses. He supports pseudo-science and pseudo-history that will harm rather than reform Louisiana education:

(1) creationism, which is unconstitutional in public schools, and

(2) the false history of America's founding as a Christian nation.

Religious and non-religious citizens in all political parties should be concerned.

Mr. Jindal's alliance with the Religious Right has been obscured by the Louisiana Democratic Party's ham-fisted ads attacking him as anti-Protestant. Not only are Democrats wrong to use religion politically, but their ads are factually incorrect: Mr. Jindal, a Catholic, is not anti-Protestant. He works hand in hand with evangelical Protestants who oppose public education and church/state separation. Conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants became allies in 1994 to pursue a shared political agenda (“Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” http://www.first things.com/article.php3?id_article=4454). Although they certainly don't represent all Christians, they pursue common goals such as putting right-wing ideologues into federal judgeships, promoting intelligent design creationism and dismantling church/state separation. Democrats didn't have to make Mr. Jindal's religious views a political issue. He has done this himself.

Mr. Jindal's platform calls for promoting “math, science and literacy” and hiring teachers in fields such as “physics, math, or biology” (p. 5). However, an important fact from his 2003 gubernatorial campaign should be recalled: Mr. Jindal supports teaching creationism. In September 2003, the Associated Press reported his answering “yes” on the Louisiana Family Forum's voter guide as to whether he favored teaching the “scientific weaknesses of evolution” (creationist codetalk) in public schools. (LFF is affiliated with Focus on the Family, a powerful Religious Right organization.)

When a reporter asked his position on teaching creationism, Mr. Jindal's response clearly favored undermining the teaching of evolution: “With evolution there are flaws and gaps. I think it's appropriate to tell our students that no scientific theory can prove evolution.” (“Sharp questions put candidates at governor's forum on spot,” Associated Press, September 25, 2003) Jindal, a Rhodes scholar and Brown University biology graduate, surely knows better but apparently opted for political expediency.

Jindal has made his religion an issue by fusing personal religiosity and politics. The 2/28/07 Livingston Parish News reported that his February 2007 Abundant Life Church speech, attended by “prominent local politicians,” consisted “almost entirely” of his Christian testimony. Jindal was also photographed praying with Destiny International Church pastors during a party at the church coordinated by Livingston Parish Republican Women. (LP

News, 4/26/07)

Among Jindal's most troubling allies is Republican Religious Right operative David Barton, who calls church/state separation “a myth.” Barton, who runs an organization called Wallbuilders, has used bogus quotations by the Founding Fathers to support his contention in books and videos that American government was founded on Christianity. Americans United for Separation of Church and State exposed Barton as a pseudo-historian who “makes a living” attacking church/state separation (Church & State, April 1993, http://candst.tripod.com/boston1.htm). Mr. Jindal promotes this false history.

Journalist Frederick Clarkson reported in October 2006 that Jindal and Barton visited Baptist churches in Alexandria, Bossier City, and West Monroe (10/6/06, www.talk2action.org/story/2006/10/10/19281/863). Describing these visits on Barton's Wallbuilders Live! radio program a few days later (Oct. 18, 19, 2006), Jindal praised Barton's pseudo-history: “Dave did a fantastic job, went to three churches with us, just reminding us of our nation's history [and] heritage.” Barton, calling Jindal a “product of what we were able to put in office in 2004” because of the “huge increase in Christian voter turnout,” praised Jindal's desire to “make a difference in the culture war.” (www.wall builderslive.com/archives.asp)

Voters who value religious freedom and disapprove of George Bush's attack on church/state separation should consider what Mr. Jindal may do as governor, aided by his Religious Right allies. His religious views should be no one else's concern, but he has made them everyone's concern.

- Barbara Forrest, Holden