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To: P-Marlowe

If you are going to respond to my posts, at least read them first. Mandating a book is not the same as mandating that a book is authoritative in its subject.

You could mandate reading Karl Marx in a history class or even an economics class. It would be objectionable to mandate that Marx's writing must be accepted by teachers as authoritative and correct on the subject of economics.

The Dover school board tried to mandate "Pandas" as equivalent to a science text.


2,201 posted on 12/22/2005 10:36:57 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138; xzins; metmom; jude24; donh
If you are going to respond to my posts, at least read them first. Mandating a book is not the same as mandating that a book is authoritative in its subject.

At least you recognize that they did not mandate reading the book. They did, however, mandate that people who object to the theory of evolution are still required to learn it and be tested upon it. Nobody required that anyone either read the Pandas book or be tested on it. Hence the worst thing that can be said is that the school board advocated a book which may have had a particular religious viewpoint. That is not an establishment of religion and a requirement that a person learn some theory of science that categorically conflicts with his religious beliefs is far closer to an establishment of religion than a suggestion that if you wish to question that theory that there are alternative resources.

You still have refused to provide any constitutional argument that what the Dover school district did was "an establishment of religion" as referenced in the first amendment.

You could mandate reading Karl Marx in a history class or even an economics class. It would be objectionable to mandate that Marx's writing must be accepted by teachers as authoritative and correct on the subject of economics.

But it would not be constitutionally prohibited!

It would be stupid, but the remedy is to remove the board, not to make a Federal Case out of it.

Again you are engaging in hyperbole. The District did not force teachers to accept the Pandas book as authoritative. It simply required them to read the statement of the board that suggested that the Pandas book might be a good reference for viewing alternative ideas.

The Dover school board tried to mandate "Pandas" as equivalent to a science text.

They did nothing of the sort. But even if they had mandated it, it does not establish a religion. At worst it merely presents an alternative religious viewpoint to consider.

2,211 posted on 12/22/2005 11:01:53 AM PST by P-Marlowe
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