Katie Couric weighed in on the boycott at CBS. The New York Times, which urged Jindal to veto the bill last year in a hard hitting editorial, also reported on it.

In signing the creationist LA Science Education Act, Jindal was repaying the political debt he owes to the Religious Right group with which he is ideologically aligned: the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), an affiliate of Focus on the Family (FOF). When he made his much-publicized visit to Iowa in November 2008, the media paid scant attention to the significance of this event's being hosted by another FOF affiliate, the Iowa Family Policy Center. Rev. Gene Mills, a minister who serves as the executive director of the LFF and is a close Jindal ally, attended the event with him.

The only mainstream journalist who has so far connected the dots between Jindal and the LFF is Adam Nossiter of the New York Times. On June 2, 2008, Nossiter wrote that the LFF considers Jindal "one of the family." Jindal's closeness to this group was crystal clear at a Christmas gala that the LFF threw for him in December 2007: a YouTube video shows him being publicly prayed over and undergoing the "laying on of hands" during the event, with Gene Mills looking on. Mills is a constant presence at the Louisiana State Capitol during legislative sessions.

Louisiana is now paying the price for Jindal's loyalty to his Religious Right support base. The SICB would not be boycotting Louisiana if the LSEA were not on the books, and the LSEA would not be on the books if Jindal had not signed it. His election was the lynchpin in the LFF's scheme to win passage of this law, which they had been plotting for years. Jindal could have stopped the bill with a stroke of his pen, but his loyalty to the LFF was more important than the voices of the scientists and teachers in his own state who pleaded with him to veto it. With respect to a host of hot-button conservative social issues, the Louisiana Family Forum, in a very real sense, is crafting public policy in Louisiana. Given their influence over him, it is fair to say that the LFF owns Bobby Jindal.

Signing creationist legislation is not the only thing Jindal has done to keep his Religious Right base happy. He stacked his "Louisiana Commission on Marriage and Family" with like-minded ideologues, including Mills and Tony Perkins, a Louisiana native and Jindal ally who now heads the Family Research Council in Washington, DC. Many of Jindal's appointments to the commission reflect his anti-gay policy views. In 2008, he refused to renew former Gov. Kathleen Blanco's executive order prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians in Louisiana, saying, "We are not going to renew it and that shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody."

On the day of his inauguration in January 2008, he was honored at a prayer breakfast in which the LFF participated. The breakfast was attended by Religious Right figures such as former Texas Republican Party operative and pseudo-historian David Barton, who promotes "Christian nation" propaganda - and creationism -- on his Wallbuilders  website. He attended as Jindal's guest, having campaigned with him in those north Louisiana churches in 2006. Texas Gov. Rick Perry was also there, as was Tony Perkins, who later boasted of praying with Jindal before his inauguration.

Having campaigned in north Louisiana Baptist churches in 2006, Jindal now uses a state  helicopter -- with the taxpayers footing the bill -- to fly back to north Louisiana on Sundays to attend Protestant church services, although he is a staunch Roman Catholic. He also attends the LFF's political events, such as their 2008 Legislative Awards dinner, at which they honored state legislators who voted their way on issues such as the creationism bill. (See U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy's (R-LA)  announcement about his receiving one of these awards. Prior to his 2008 election to U.S. Rep. Richard Baker's congressional seat, Cassidy played a major role in shepherding the LSEA through the Louisiana legislature.)

Using state helicopters to campaign in north Louisiana churches will not help the people of Louisiana build better lives, but it will cement the governor's Religious Right political base. Signing creationist legislation will not help Louisiana families give their children a "great education" or improve Louisiana's workforce, which Jindal  claims is one of his top priorities, but it will keep the Louisiana Family Forum happy and strengthen their political clout. This is one of the governor's chief priorities, and he understands fully what he is doing. He just hopes that the American people - and the national media- don't catch on to the fact that he is using George Bush's Religious Right playbook down here.