HARRISBURG -- Bryan Rehm's family used to be able to count on friendly exchanges in restaurants or other public places around Dover. But on the witness stand yesterday, he told the court how different the Dover area community became once it was divided by the battle over intelligent design.
The kids at school tell his daughter she "came from monkeys," he said.
They ask her why her parents are helping to sue their school district.
Rehm, who said he and his wife are active in their church and vacation Bible school, said people call him an atheist.
And they have said worse things than that, but Rehm said he wouldn't repeat them in court.
After a day of scientific testimony Monday, Rehm and fellow parents and plaintiffs Tammy Kitzmiller and Barrie Callahan took to the witness stand yesterday.
Rehm, a physics and science teacher at the high school in the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years and father of four Dover Area students, said he left the district after the school board started trying to promote intelligent design among its science teachers.
Says teachers felt pressured: Rehm, who now works in another area high school, testified that board member Alan Bonsell told him and other science teachers he wanted to balance creationism and evolution in science classes.
Science teachers, feeling pressured, "repeatedly explained to him, 'We're not going to do this (teach creationism and evolution),'" Rehm said.
He said he attended meetings last year and heard former board member William Buckingham, who was then chairman of the board's curriculum committee, say the high school's biology book was "laced with Darwinism" and the board should take a stand for "somebody" who died on a cross 2,000 years ago.
He said he "couldn't believe" board members were talking in such religious terms at a public meeting.
Rehm is running for a seat on the school board. Even if he is elected, his ninth-grade daughter's biology class will begin to study evolution in January, and she might have to decide whether she wants to sit through a statement telling students that intelligent design is an alternative "theory" to evolution.
School board retreat: Callahan, a former board member who lost a 2003 bid for re-election, testified yesterday that during a board retreat in March 2003, Bonsell said creationism should be taught "50-50" with evolution.
Steve Harvey, one of the parents' attorneys from Pepper Hamilton LLC, pointed to handwritten notes Callahan took during the retreat.
Beside Bonsell's name, Callahan noted Bonsell's "50-50" proposal and noted that Bonsell said he "does not believe in evolution."
Attorney Patrick Gillen from the school board's defenders, the Thomas More Law Center, pointed out during cross examination that there were no votes taken during the retreat and it was not "an official" board meeting.
But Callahan also testified she heard board members making religious comments and promoting creationism at public meetings.
Tammy Kitzmiller, who has two teenage daughters at the high school, said she hadn't attended many meetings, but learned about the talk of creationism from reading newspapers.
At the mention of several stories published in The York Dispatch and York Daily Record, Gillen reminded Judge John E. Jones III that his clients have a standing objection to testimony related to the "hearsay" contained in the newspaper stories.
Newspapers appealing: The two York newspapers are appealing Jones' order for Heidi Bernhard-Bubb, a freelance writer for The York Dispatch, and Joseph Maldonado, a freelance writer for the York Daily Record, to testify about what they saw and heard while covering Dover's school board meetings.
In reporting discussions about intelligent design, they quoted board members making religious statements that the board members now deny making.
The ACLU, representing the parents, wanted the reporters to testify that their stories were accurate, but The Thomas More Center subpoenaed the reporters in an attempt to ask them about details that were not published in the newspapers. Gillen has called the newspaper reports "fabricated."
The newspapers argue many other residents heard the board members make the comments, and reporters, under the First Amendent, should be the last resort for testimony.
The newspapers' managements have said they don't want to be involved in the news -- they want to report it.
The newspapers' attorney, Niles Benn, has said that both Bernhard-Bubb and Maldonado stand by the accuracy of their articles and have decided that, if necessary, they will be held in contempt of court for refusing to testify.
Yesterday, the two reporters appeared for depositions in Harrisburg but did not provide them. Both invoked reporter's privilege, which says reporters have the right not to be bound to testify or disclose sources and information in court.They are both scheduled to testify today.
ACLU attorney Witold Walczak and The Thomas More Center's chief counsel, Richard Thompson, said yesterday they would decide how to proceed with the reporters after they appear in court this afternoon.
The reporters could be fined or imprisoned if Jones finds them in contempt of court.
The kids at school tell his daughter she "came from monkeys," he said.
While this may be an oversimplification, isn't this pretty much what evolution claims?
Interesting. How many witnesses does it take to make something a fact?