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In a season typified by lawsuits against manger scenes, crosses and even the words "Merry Christmas," a California case is taking the "separation of church and state" one step further dealing with whether it's unconstitutional to read the Declaration of Independence in public school.
Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit Monday against the Cupertino Union School District for prohibiting a teacher from providing supplemental handouts to students about American history because the historical documents contain some references to God and religion.
"Throwing aside all common sense, the district has chosen to censor men such as George Washington and documents like the Declaration of Independence," said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. "The district's actions conflict with American beliefs and are completely unconstitutional."
Patricia Vidmar, principal of the Stevens Creek School, reportedly ordered the teacher, Stephen Williams, to submit his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to her for advance approval. Aside from Williams, a Christian, no other teachers were subject to the advance-screening requirement, says the ADF.
Just what documents did Williams submit that were deemed unfit for the school's students?
"Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, the diaries of George Washington and John Adams, the writings of William Penn, and various state constitutions," said the public-interest law firm representing Willliams.
"Less than five percent of all of Mr. Williams" supplemental handouts distributed throughout the school year contain references to God and Christianity," McCaleb said. "The district is simply attempting to cleanse all references to the Christian religion from our nation's history, and they are singling out Mr. Williams for discriminatory treatment. Their actions are unacceptable under both California and federal law."
California's Education Code does allow "references to religion or references to or the use of religious literature � when such references or uses do not constitute instruction in religious principles � and when such references or uses are incidental to or illustrative of matters properly included in the course of study."
The case, Stephen J. Williams v. Cupertino Union School District, et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division.
And this is just one example of the clandestine attack on the very foundations of this country. When the Constitution of the United States becomes "unconstitutional" we as a nation are in very serious trouble.freeandfun1 said:Is Declaration of Independence unconstitutional?
School district sued for censoring founding documents, state constitutions
CSM said:And this is just one example of the clandestine attack on the very foundations of this country. When the Constitution of the United States becomes "unconstitutional" we as a nation are in very serious trouble.
I have a special place in my heart for the flower children of the 60's ... actually it's a lot lower in my anatomy.Mr. P said:California, What a surprise! Patricia Vidmar must be some old "Power to the people"
leftover flower child of the sixties I guess. Damn that pissy Constitution standing in the way
of a perfect sociaty!
CSM said:I have a special place in my heart for the flower children of the 60's ... actually it's a lot lower in my anatomy.
KarlMarx said:OK.... that does it.... Justice Karl declares that liberals are unconstitutional!Just when you think that some libs can't get any dumber..... they prove you wrong!
It reminds me of an old Abbot and Costello joke ..... Costello does something really stupid and Abbott exclaims "Lou! How stupid can you get?!?!?!?" to which Costello answers "I dunno.... how stupid do you want me to be?"
But then.... isn't this inevitable? I mean haven't the libs been attacking the Constitution for years? Here's what I mean
1. They want to nullify the 2nd amendment - the right to keep and bear arms
2. They want to get rid of the Electoral College --- which wasn't an issue with them when they had control of the White House but has been an issue since the 2000 elections.
3. They've reinterpreted the meaning of the free speech clause to include pornography
4. They've reinterpreted the meaning of the freedom of religion clause to mean "separation of church and state"
5. They've taken away the States' rights to ban abortion in violation of the 10th amendment
6. They've taken away the unborn's right to life in violation of the 14th amendment
Yet, to add insult to injury, when GWB proposes an amendment to ban gay marriage, they object on grounds that he is tinkering with the Constitution for political reasons!
Wont have to; that's why the planet has "fault lines"; some higher power knew what they were doing!gop_jeff said:Can we PLEASE kick California out?!?
CSM said:Wont have to; that's why the planet has "fault lines"; some higher power knew what they were doing!
IT'S A JOKE FOLKS!!!
Sad thing is you arent even touching a tip of the ice burg of what libs have attempted
I thought I was bad!musicman said:Yeah - take it easy, everybody. It's not CSM's FAULT....er, sorry - the man was just making a little wise CRACK...oops - um, one little joke isn't going to make the EARTH QUAKE....oh, hell - Californians, don't worry if your relationship falls apart - there are plenty of other FISH IN THE SEA...maybe I'll stop now.
CSM said:I thought I was bad!
Faith and the Fifth Grade
Did a California school ban the Declaration of Independence? Not quite.
BY NAOMI SCHAEFER REILY
Friday, March 25, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Many of us remember the headline, "Declaration of Independence banned from classroom." Just before Thanksgiving, the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against the Cupertino, Calif., school district and issued a press release with that claim at the top--and all hell broke loose.
Talk radio and TV rushed to the aid of Steven Williams, a public-school teacher and professed Christian who had apparently suffered religious discrimination at the hands of a martinet-principal. Not allowed to teach the Declaration of Independence? Was it possible? People all over the country began contacting the Stevens Creek Elementary School. The court of public opinion's verdict was swift: Someone had pushed the cause of secularism into new realms of absurdity and abuse.
A nice, neat, outrageous story. But was it true? Luckily, the wheels of justice grind slowly, giving us a chance for a second look. On March 30, District Judge James Ware will hear the first motion of the civil suit. He'll have a lot to consider.
It turns out that the Declaration had not been "banned." It still appears in the school's fifth-grade textbook and hangs from classroom walls. The real claim is narrower. The suit alleges that, for religious reasons, Mr. Williams was forced to get approval from the principal before handing out supplemental materials to his fifth-grade class, and among those materials, on one occasion, was an excerpt from the Declaration. How did it come about that the school's principal, Patti Vidmar, withheld her approval from this noble text?
According to Mark Davis, the school district's counsel, Mr. Williams had become the subject of "a couple of formal and some informal complaints" because of the frequency and alleged inappropriateness of his mentions of faith in the classroom. He had become a born-again Christian in spring 2001.
Michael Zimmers's daughter, in Mr. Williams's class last year, told her father on the second day of school that her teacher didn't seem to be "respecting" other people's religions. As the year went on, her father says, she told him that Mr. Williams seemed to talk about Jesus "about a hundred times a day." Nathalie Schuler Ferro, a PTO board member and parent of two children at Stevens Creek, was told by other parents that Mr. Williams's students were sometimes asked to say "amen" when someone got an answer right and that one math test included the formula "God + Jesus = ____." (Ms. Ferro notes in an interview that, as a Catholic who was once asked to explain Christmas to her child's kindergarten class, she is hardly anti-Christian.)
Other parents claim Mr. Williams kept a Bible on his desk alongside worship CDs and regularly spoke to his classes about his weekend Bible studies. Armineh Noravian objected when Mr. Williams passed out President Bush's Day of Prayer proclamation in her son's class this year, to show students, Mr. Williams later told her, "the importance of prayer."
Ultimately, Ms. Vidmar--a Christian herself, who got permission at Stevens Creek for an after-school Good News Bible club--stepped in. She asked Mr. Williams to show her lesson plans mentioning God or religion. She approved some, like the one showing C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories to be Christian allegory. But others, like the lesson on Easter and the Resurrection, she told him to omit.
According to California's fifth-grade history standards, teachers are supposed to explain the "creation of a new nation . . . founded on the Judeo-Christian heritage" and to give an account of the religious nature of the American colonies. Mr. Williams perhaps rightly felt that the textbook--which The New Yorker in a recent article called a "model of multicultural sensitivity"--did not help him fulfill these requirements. So he sought materials that did.
Things came to a head when Mr. Williams presented Ms. Vidmar with George Washington's "Prayer Journal," "Religious Clauses in State Constitutions" and "What Great Leaders Have Said About the Bible." When she rejected these materials, he returned with the idea of teaching the part of the Declaration about "the Creator" and "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God." When Ms. Vidmar said "no," the tale of a ban began. Judge Ware must now decide whether Ms. Vidmar had cause to scrutinize and reject some of Mr. Williams's more zealous lesson plans.
Religious people nationwide will no doubt be following the case closely, thinking of instances in which public schools have over-interpreted the separation of church and state to mean virtually banning religion from their premises. But should this new lawsuit join that list of excessive vigilance? The parents and principal at Stevens Creek don't seem to have a problem with religion at their school. They do seem to feel that one of their fifth-grade teachers crossed a line. For those who worry about the way faith is treated in our public institutions, Mr. Williams may not be the best candidate for a hero.
Nice find Kathianne. The original story sounded a little simplistic and sketchy on the details. My take on the story after reading your article is that this teacher had WAY overstepped the bounds of appropriatness in the past and had shown that he was unable to make good judgement calls on his own. It then sounds like the people reviewing his materials might have gone too far in the other direction and the original story focused only on that one aspect.Kathianne said:It does not look like this teacher was a 'hero'. Seems to me he would be happier teaching in a Christian school. I wouldn't want a committed Muslim teaching my 5th grader or an atheist that believes that children should be disabused of their parent's 'stories.'
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006470
Kathianne said:It does not look like this teacher was a 'hero'. Seems to me he would be happier teaching in a Christian school. I wouldn't want a committed Muslim teaching my 5th grader or an atheist that believes that children should be disabused of their parent's 'stories.'
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006470
