Why would I argue that this is a bad thing when 1. I think that children are better off if they are not fed ideology of any sort in schools and 2. I think that Intelligent Design is clearly religion and therefore ideology?
To begin with, we clearly haven’t heard the end of this. One of the main reasons that the US seems to be the only civilized country with a recent pandemic outbreak of religion is that the left DID go too far in making things like prayers in schools unconstitutional. This makes the constitution a reactionary secular ideological doctrine, similar in form but more diluted from Soviet anti-religious doctrine. What makes a constitutional democracy good is that it is not a doctrine but a process of reason.
If you believe in science, and therefore in reason, then you do not need to legislate from the bench, if you believe that laws are absolute then you have to. God is both judge and law maker, the ultimate legislator from the bench. People who believe in reason should not turn the constitution into ideology, they should defend the process of amendment as being ongoing rather than in order to correct mistakes.
The constitution will always be flawed and should not be worshipped, it is a reflection of current consensus, nothing more. If you believe in progress, then the consensus moves into a better place over time. For America as a whole current consensus is better than when the constitution was written, because the vast majority of people think slavery is wrong. The majority currently do not think that Darwin was right, but they will eventually, if progress in America continues. Without solid consensus the constitution is fragile at the edges and cannot continue to move forward.
Secondly – imagine a virus which spread more when attacked but which was badly built for a current environment, having not mutated much in a couple of thousand years.
If you legislate that someone cannot have their kids taught about the foundation of their entire way of life and moral framework, then that person will look really hard at what their kid is taught. Religion thrives off persecution, in churches around the world people worship in front of the biblical equivalent of an electric chair. If you attack religion it will get stronger.
On the other hand, religion is necessarily poorly adapted to the modern world. Because it is faith based rather than reason based, it doesn’t change much.
The morality of the bible is based in a more primitive era, when society groups were not large enough to learn to tolerate minorities like gay people or transport shellfish quickly enough that it didn’t go bad. If we leave religion alone and offer reasonable alternatives it will look increasingly absurd. Because religious texts are not amendable they will wane in relevance and therefore importance, naturally. As Dawkins points out, we are all atheists in the eyes of an ancient Roman.
I am linking to the very secular Christian Science Monitor coverage, for the irony value: