You're absolutely right--I had misremembered the outcome of the trial--but it set in motion the idea of separating religion from science education, which now seems obvious to most Americans.
And while the U.S. does have a wide contingent of (mostly uneducated) people as you describe, I could not imagine a serious research institution in the U.S. today recommending giving Biblical creation equal time with science in the public schools; even less, the mobbing of a scientist who objects to it by thousands of his colleagues crying for him to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences--with his provost and the society itself in agreement!