Jerry Summers
July 2025, will mark the 100th anniversary of the historical Scopes Trial over the issue of the constitutionality of the Anti-Evolution (Butler) Act, enacted by the Tennessee General Assembly (TGA) in March 1925. The question of the legal battle over the Genesis story in the Bible versus the published writings of Charles Darwin in the Rhea County Courthouse has been retold in millions of words, publications, on the stage, and in cinema for a century.
In 2023, the same state legislature body, TGA, enacted a new, controversial law making it illegal for transgender minors to be prescribed certain medications and treatments for gender dysphoria. (A quick trip to Google can reveal numerous definitions and analysis of the condition.)
The controversies in both Scopes (Evolution) and Williams (Transgender rights) both involved the constitutionality of numerous state statutes dealing with interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Of course, there is and will be other differences between the two issues.
1) The L. Williams case successfully made it to the US Supreme Court and was argued before the nine member panel on December 4, 2024.
2) The Scopes case did not get past the Tennessee Supreme Court (TSC), which was vigorously argued by the eleven attorneys listed on the reported decision in 154 Tennessee, 289 SW 363 (1927).
3) The Williams case will probably result in multiple opinions by the justices in Washington, DC.
The Scopes case was dismissed by the TSC on a technicality never raised by either side. The setting of a $100 fine by Judge John T. Raulston, rather than the trial jury, was a violation of Article Six, Section 14 of the Tennessee Constitution.
4) The Scopes case was sent back to the Criminal Court of Rhea County, was never retried, and ultimately the Tennessee statute was dismissed in 1967 by the TGA, prior to another evolution case from Arkansas, (Epperson vs. Arkansas, 393 US 97, 1968) was invalidated by a unanimous vote of the US Supreme Court.
5) The Williams case opinion is tentatively scheduled for release in June 2025 shortly before the July 2025 celebration of the 100th anniversary of the verdict in Scopes.
(History does sometimes have a way of repeating itself--- in Tennessee!)
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