There are a couple of interesting stories on the continued struggle over teaching evolution in public schools. In Louisiana, the state has approved special rules allowing teachers to challenge the basis of the theory of evolution. In California, a court ruled that a history teacher’s criticism of creationism violated the Constitution.
Louisiana, which has long had some of the lowest achievement levels in public education, will now have teachers challenging the basis of evolution. The alternative is obviously a belief in creationism. This will allow the use of supplemental materials, presumably including “intelligent design” material.
For the full story, click here.
While you can criticize evolution in Louisiana, you cannot criticize creationism in California. A court found that European history teacher, James Corbett, 62, violated by Constitution by referring to creationism as “superstitious nonsense”.
Chad Farnan, a devout Christian studying at California’s Capistrano Valley high school, had originally sued over a series of comments made by his teacher. It appears that Farnan spent many months collecting a dossier of material against Corbett before bringing the action.
The court threw out all but the last comment.
He is represented by Jennifer Monk, who works for a not-for-profit Christian law firm, Advocates for Faith and Freedom. She still claimed victory in establishing that the comment was actionable. I think she is right that it was a considerable victory. While the Court recently ruled that her client could not recover damages from the teacher, it still established the principle that a teacher cannot criticize creationism. It just shows that, if you want to argue for creationism, find a Monk.
What is interesting is that the basis for the ruling is that creationism is a religious belief. However, creationists have been advancing the same views under the label “intelligent design” and insist that this is not teaching religion. Thus, in places like Louisiana, they are likely to be calling for intelligent design material to be used in class. Does that mean if Corbett said “intelligent design is “superstitious nonsense”, it would not violate the Constitution?
Judge James Selna’s decision draws a curious line. He found that it does not violate the establishment clause for Corbett to say such things as “when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth” because this statement was made in a historical context. He also ruled that it was not a violation to say “conservatives don’t want women to avoid pregnancies — that’s interfering with God’s work” and that there was as much evidence that God created the world “as there is that there is a gigantic spaghetti monster living behind the moon who did it”.
Ok, I am now confused. Selna insists that “there was no legitimate secular purpose to the statement and it constituted ‘improper disapproval of religion in violation of the establishment clause.'” The big spaghetti monster didn’t raise the same issue?
It sounds to me that Corbett went a bit far and should be a bit more circumspect. However, teaching evolution necessarily rejects the concept that a divine being simply created all of nature in a few days — just a few thousand years ago. While politicians still insist that carbon dating is a myth and the Earth was relatively recently created, teachers teach facts not faith. Evolution is a fact.
The other issue is the fact that this is a high school class. I would be very concerned about such comments in an elementary or middle school. However, in high school, teachers will often try to challenge their students and engage them in spirited debate. That is usually a matter for internal review at the school as opposed to fully fledge litigation.
Selna did rule in favor of Corbett on the issue of “qualified immunity,” holding “Corbett is shielded from liability – not because he did not violate the Constitution, but because of the balance which must be struck to allow public officials to perform their duties.”
For the earlier story, click here
For the latest story, click here.
John Puma, what I am saying is that there is no case against Dr. Corbett because nothing in the Constitution protects a person’s religious beliefs from criticism or ridicule. Whether his comments were appropriate within the particular setting is a policy issue, not a constitutional one. Inasmuch as his course was described as a college level European history course emphasizing the development of critical thinking skills, I fail to understand the controversy. If the student in question was offended, that is not evidence that his religious rights were violated, although it may be evidence that he (and his parents) are seriously deficient in the very skills demanded in Dr. Corbett’s classes. The remedy, if you will, should have been the student’s withdrawal from the class.
CCD:
If the mother joined a cult that is her choice unless it is an illegal cult. If the children are not being harmed and are getting proper care then it is not the states business. If you infringe on this woman’s rights to home school, at some point there could be a conservative Christian judge who could quite easily tell a liberal school system to fire all teachers who don’t believe in God.
Although I believe the children should not be deprived of their fathers’ love and affection.
Mespo:
in regards to the Danbury Baptist letter, it appears to me, after reading your recommended paper and the Statute, that Jefferson is saying he is glad that religion is being protected from the state, not the converse.
“thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
When you build a wall for protection, as I believe this is what Jefferson is saying, the wall is to keep something out and since church is the first word this is what you are protecting and it falls in line with his thinking in “The Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom”. He is protecting religion from the state not the other way around. Whereas the current thinking is protecting the state from religion.
Although I will agree that he would probably be opposed to Bob McDonnell and his views on religion and it’s use to determine legislation.
More mischief by the Undersheperd Bdaman:
Judge Mangum’s ruling is against the mother (she is the plaintiff) trying to keep the father from having any influence on their children.
She wants to severly limit his contact with their children and keep the children away from anyone critical of the cult she has joined.
Does this mean that The Flintstones was a documentary?
Byron,
Welcome back! As well as the fine points made above by mespo and Buddha, Creationism is clearly the establishment of Christianity as a state sponsored religion. Their is no science in Creationism. The Dover,PA case looked extensively into it’s history and it is clearly an attempt to establish a christianity as a state sponsored religion.
I think creation stories of as many religions and cultures as poassible, should be taught under anthropology. Creation stories are very important in each society, and subsets within that society. I consider knowing them a part of education. But no creation story has the validity of science behind it, so none of them can be taught as a “science” no matter how disguised.
I think if you bring up the idea of teaching Creationism in the classromm with Goddess instead of God, after many parents have stopped stonning you, you will see they do not mean this as “religion” neutral! (I think you would get a lot of hate mail as a teacher or parent who wanted creation stories from many cultures taught in anthropology as well.)
Buddha:
Reading those papers, I am not so sure he was trying to create a secular government. It appears to me he was trying to establish a government that would not prohibit any religion or lack of or the free exercise thereof.
I certainly cant devine Mr. Jefferson’s intentions and can only take an opinion on what I read, but the founders were mostly well educated men and they knew how to communicate using the English language.
“Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that [Whereas,] Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his
supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone, that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world through all time”
“that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
both quotes from The Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom
Byron you are exactly right. There are choices though, such as homeschool. This is being attacked as well. North Carolina Judge, Judge Mangum forced two homeschoolers back to public school is a prime example.
When issuing his verdict Judge Mangum stated his decision was not ideologically or religiously motivated. He told thier mother public school will “challenge the ideas you’ve taught them.” In other words, Judge Mangum is a liberal judge who wants to retrain the children in a way that they succumb to the ways and teachings of “government”
What has emerged is a picture of a clearly liberal judge imposing his beliefs and striking down traditional values. Mangum, a Democrat appointee, disregarded the facts of the case in favor of his own agenda. Such anti-conservative prejudice is increasingly legislated from the bench, and appears to be encouraged by the Democratic Obama administration. It’s just another way that Judge’s impose their Social Engineering on people. Obama canceled the school voucher progarm while sending his children to private school.
On March 24th lawmakers in North Carolina were reminded of the sheer numbers of homeschoolers in their state. As students and their parents descended on the capitol, organizers of the Capital Fest 2009 field trip showed they have a voice in North Carolina legislation regarding education.
Homeschoolers from across the nation are asked to fight back to defend their rights as Americans to educate their children. Many feel that the judge has been given a free hand to impose his personal opinions and needs to reexamine his decisions. You can find more information on how to participate at HSinjustice.com.
And if you didn’t watch the youtube video I posted Call to Dunkirk you should.
Byron:
Jefferson was a deist and had no desire to see “God” excluded from the public square. He, like many today, drew the distinction between the deity and the paltry, corrupted attempts at worship created by man known as religion. The pernicious effects of religion (such as power mongering and dogmatism)were as evident to him then and they should be to us today. Jefferson recognized that:
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” (Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813).
Religious dogmatism, which even the most benign religions devolve to be, was an anathema to Jefferson’s rational view of the world:
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.” (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789)
This why Jefferson believed the wall holding back the seething tide of internecine warfare based upon dogmatic views of what should or shouldn’t be must be an unequivocal separator from the public square where its pernicious effects could lead to civil strive based on conflicting beliefs that were not subject to rational challenge.
His letter to the Danbury Baptists demonstrates that evident truth:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship,that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions,I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802).
Government to legislate actions and not beliefs was a direct challenge to religion’s soul crushing obession to regulate beliefs and actions. This was his (and if I may bandwagon with the great sage–mine as well) greatest fear for the fledgling republic.
Byron,
Perhaps you should distinguish between “atheism” and “secular”.
a⋅the⋅ism –
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
sec⋅u⋅lar –
1. of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.
2. not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred ): secular music.
3. (of education, a school, etc.) concerned with nonreligious subjects.
4. (of members of the clergy) not belonging to a religious order; not bound by monastic vows (opposed to regular ).
5. occurring or celebrated once in an age or century: the secular games of Rome.
6. going on from age to age; continuing through long ages.
While Jefferson was a self-proclaimed Christian, that is a question debated by scholars. By his actions and writings on religion, it becomes apparent that Jefferson was far more complicated than the simple label (or indeed most labels of any sort) implies. But I don’t think he was going for atheism either. His aim was secular government. I think that’s an important distinction.
Mike Appleton:
re: your 11:13 pm post above
Mespo sent me an article about Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Freedom of Religion. I read the article and the statute and what I took away from it was not a separation of government and religion but a protection of religion from government establishing a central religion supported by government and supportive of government as they had had in England.
Reading that article and the statute have caused me to look at this whole establishment question in a different light. Jefferson was protecting religion and the ability of the individual to practice his religion per the dictates of his conscience, he was not protecting government. Jefferson also included atheism in this protection.
So the question, in my mind, becomes why should atheists have sway over the debate? Are not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu ideas not as relevant? I am not speaking only of evolution at this point. And so why cant a manger scene be acceptable at Christmas on public property or at Ramadan a scene relevant to Islam or on a Hindu holy day something that has meaning for them? But all religion is banned from the public square and that seems to me to be an establishment of atheism as the national religion which is exactly what Mr. Jefferson did not want.
And to think that each legislative session is opened by a prayer.
To Mike A,
Are you sayining that there was no case against Corbett because Peloza should not have been teaching creationism in the first place – as proven, in part, by his own, failed lawsuit?
To Dan,
Wonder about military chaplains? Consider this:
” Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought”
http://www.truthout.org/article/military-evangelism-deeper-wider-than-first-thought
Re bdaman’s video:
Does it bother anyone else that the US government employs Chaplains in the military? How is that not a violation of the establishment clause? I bet they don’t hire a chaplain for every religion. Didn’t James Madison have something to say about that?
Still waitin’ for some copenhagen dippin’ hunter to bring in a Sasquatch. I’ve been waiting since I was twelve and saw Mysterious Monsters at the Simi Drive-In, back in the 70’s. Everytime I watch the Patterson film from 67′, I get the chills. I am convinced that this is a “Bigfoot” and possibly a subspecies of Gigantopithecus blacki, or some other type of yet unknown anthropoid.
Mike A.,
Well said. The idea that the public education system is being hijacked by the far religious right is disturbing.
1.There are no topics, beliefs, systems, ideas, philosophies or thoughts of any kind which are, or ought to be, immune from either criticism or actual ridicule.
2.Anyone who is unable to understand the distinction between the teaching of scientific theory and of theological tenets is unqualified to be involved in the development of school curricula.
3.Creationism is not merely a system of religious belief; it is a system of religious belief peculiar to only a small segment of one branch of the family of religions. Accordingly, the teaching of creationism as science in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
This is not actually complicated. It has merely been made to appear so by fundamentalists who view any restrictions upon the dissemination of their particular religious beliefs in government funded institutions to somehow constitute discrimination against religion. To the contrary, the actual legal battle is between religious freedom and the imposition of Christian fundamentalism as the state religion in this country.
My personal view is that Christian fundamentalism is authoritarian, anti-intellectual, intolerant and unworthy of serious discussion. My tax dollars should not be utilized to promote its doctrines either in the school system or through faith-based initiatives programs.
There is nothing ‘unexplainable’ in science, just things that haven’t yet been explained.
bUDDHA:
”
When you raise people incapable of exercising rational thought and critical reasoning skills because it hurts their feelings about their “beliefs”, you raise a nation of dullards and barbarians.”
I think we are there.
anyway reason and science are not mutually exclusive as Thomas Aquinas and Peter Abelard and William of Ockham have proven, although there might be a little dispute.