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The best way to handle the situation is to recognize that it's usually only a few students who are interested in the question. Most of the class doesn't give a damn. Of those few students who are interested, some will be locked into a religious framework and won't be swayed by evidence and a few students will care to hear the arguments.
If a teacher really wants to make the effort to reach out to those few students who want to learn, then he can announce that he participates in a quarterly event where he spends one evening at a local church which hosts a debate on the issue, probably a church that is OK with evolution, like those Universalist churches. Invite all students to come on their own time to this debate and then make the case.
It's a huge time suck because it only has benefit for 1 or 2 students who actually want to learn. Mostly the entire premise of the debate is nonsense in that the kids, and most adults, don't have enough knowledge and background knowledge to make informed decisions. This is why teachers TEACH rather than hold socratic dialogues with their students. We don't ask students to independently derive the Avogadro constant, we TELL them. People with more knowledge TELL those with less knowledge what the score is. That's the most efficient way for 1 person to transfer knowledge to 30 other people. Many teachers though are passionate about teaching and so they might want to make the huge time commitment to have a full-on debate just for the benefit of the rare students that are engaged deeply in the learning process.
I do not think the teachers response should be based on what the students want or are interested in. While student-directed learning can be useful in some circumstances, I don't think this is an appropriate place for it.