Posted on 01/23/2005 11:52:29 AM PST by beavus
WASHINGTON (ABP)—A federal judge has struck down a suburban Atlanta school district’s policy of placing disclaimers about evolution in science textbooks, saying the policy violates the Constitution’s ban on government establishment of religion.
United States District Judge Clarence Cooper issued a ruling ordering the immediate removal of textbook stickers that caution evolution is “a theory, not a fact.” The disclaimer is placed in public-school science texts in Cobb County, Ga.
The Atlanta-based judge said the school board’s policy ordering the stickers be placed in middle-school and high-school textbooks sends “a message that the school board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists.”
The ruling came in response to a group of Cobb County parents who filed a lawsuit against the school board asking for a halt to the policy.
Cooper, applying a test prescribed by a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision to determine if a government action violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause, said a reasonable observer would conclude that the stickers represented the school board’s endorsement of the religious view that God created the world a few thousand years ago in six literal days.
Such a reasonable observer, Cooper said, “would interpret the sticker to convey a message of endorsement of religion. That is, the sticker sends a message to those who oppose evolution for religious reasons that they are favored members of the political community, while the sticker sends a message to those who believe in evolution that they are political outsiders.”
In a preface to the opinion, Cooper took pains to note that his findings concern only a narrow legal issue and was not a pronouncement on other issues surrounding the controversy over the origin of species.
“First, the court is not resolving in this case whether science and religion are mutually exclusive, and the court takes no position on the origin of the human species,” Cooper wrote.
“Second, the issue before the court is not whether it is constitutionally permissible for public school teachers to teach intelligent design, the theory that only an intelligent or supernatural cause could be responsible for life, living things, and the complexity of the universe,” he continued.
“Third, this case does not resolve the ongoing debate regarding whether evolution is a fact or theory or whether evolution should be taught as fact or theory.”
The policy stems from a petition drive organized by Cobb County parent Marjorie Rogers in 2002. Rogers, who according to the opinion describes herself as a “six-day biblical creationist,” had complained about the lack of a disclaimer in the textbooks.
But, Cooper noted, the board didn’t order disclaimers regarding other theories that have some religious implications. “However, there are other scientific topics taught that have religious implications, such as the theories of gravity, relativity, and Galilean heliocentrism,” he wrote.
The head of a Washington-based group that supports strict church-state separation hailed the ruling as a “great decision.”
“These textbook disclaimers are part of a national campaign to undercut the teaching of evolution in public schools in accordance with fundamentalist Christian beliefs,” said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Today’s court decision will throw a major roadblock in the path of that crusade. Public schools may not be used to advance religious dogma, and the court has rightly upheld that principle.”
And if they don't then what.
Judge Cooper was appointed a United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of Georgia by President Clinton on May 9, 1994.
LOL.
Use civil disobedience. Make innumerable copies of the sticker and post it everywhere, including on every other textbook in the school.
...drinking fountains....
...bathroom doors and stalls....
...windows, desks, floor tiles....
You could really have a blast with this if you're in a fun mood. Heh heh heh.
I'm waiting for the day when a judge says that Congress cannot begin each days session with a prayer.
This is nonsense.
Evolution is a theory, not a fact, since you can't conduct experiments to prove it. I don't see how that means religion is being forced on students.
LOL--the only possible reaction! Is it possible that the good judge doesn't realize that "evolution" itself is a theory?
Not everybody, but poofism does have a passionate following on this forum.
You could say that evolution comprises a body of theories that reasonably explains a wealth of facts. Some aspects of the field are reasonably labelled as "facts" themselves.
One couldn't teach science without teaching theories. Labeling ideas as "theories" doesn't diminish them. Ideas in science are diminished by the quality of the supporting evidence.
But, Cooper noted, the board didn’t order disclaimers regarding other theories that have some religious implications. “However, there are other scientific topics taught that have religious implications, such as the theories of gravity, relativity, and Galilean heliocentrism,” he wrote.
***
I want what he's smoking.
When did gravity get a religious following?
America. Bent on letting Communists and other RAT-RINO ilk continue the absurd notions of Evotards.
Hey, I tried the Evotard Religion and it wasn't true, so I left.
Life has been bizarre and incredibly more dangerous and worthy of doing ever since!
Blessings from 'over there'.
I see the rotted American left/center is STILL lost and losing.
Murdering butchers, queers, haters...RUNNING away from God - then blaming Him when a disaster drowns them eternally.
I've found prayer is very effectual, so I'll pray for this 'judge', the ex-TRIMPOTUS appointee.
Exactly! If the tyranny of the judiciary is to be stopped, judges must (MUST!) be ignored when they stick their noses where judicial noses don't belong. They shouldn't be argued with or reasoned with. They need to be ignored, perhaps after being briefly laughed at.
Maybe the judge is convinced that his ancestors were monkeys.
No, no, no--I'm not talking about The-Origin-of-Species evolution (which all by itself is a bundle of theory and factual observation)! I'm talking about the mis-cited "Origin-of-the-Species" crackpot version evolution--what is generally implied by Creationist-theory haters and which includes (ipso facto anti-Creationism) big-bang, chemical fogs (you-name-it) THEORY in its broadest, most hypothetical sense.
"Theory," to be precise here, is passed on, not "taught," in the hopes that it may attract a proof. What we're talking about here, I think, is that "theory" ought to be defined as nothing MORE than it is. My theory about a mystical cabbage patch as source of life is nearly as relevant as mistaught Darwinism.
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