Posted on 12/15/2005 12:36:53 PM PST by JeffAtlanta
Now you're just misspeaking
Judge Cooper came to a similar conclusion. He said that labeling evolution a "theory" played on the popular definition of the word as a "hunch" and could confuse students. Stop trying to deny that.The sticker was "Christian expression". That's how Judge Cooper ruled.
By adopting the language that evolution is a theory not a fact, he said, the proponents of the sticker appeared to have sided with religiously motivated individuals in the anti-evolution movement who have used such language He ruled that the stickers violated the constitutionally mandated separation between church and state. The sticker, he said, sends "a message that the school board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists."
####They think the ACLU lied in their brief as to the facts.####
Wouldn't surprise me a bit.
A little legwork through the archives goes a long way
I suspect there will be a brief to correct the judge.
They're only unconstitutional if they're placed for a religious purpose (and absent a valid secular purpose). Your quite right that if a school board or legislature didn't like a particular scientific theory, any theory, for nonreligious reasons (or for no particular reason) they could post stickers about it, and however stupid or arbitrary or biased, it wouldn't be unconstitutional.
As an example, the state of Georgia prohibits tax dollars from funding abortions, but funds many other medical procedures. Why? Because the Constitution is SILENT on the issue and most Georgians don't want to fund abortions.
Exactly. The constitution is silent on that, but it is not silent on religion. It put two limitations, on the federal government initially and the states via the liberty clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: They can't, as a matter of policy, either limit the free exercise of religion nor can they advance religion in any way "respecting" an establish thereof, i.e. preferentially.
Your post seemed to say that the purpose of the disclaimer was endorsement. Correct me if I'm wrong.
At any rate, the appeals court doesn't share his view.
Judge Cooper must be a graduate of the Harry Blackmun Correspondence Course in Constitutional Misinterpretation.
It isn't dispositive at any rate. It seems the appeals judges have read the words in the disclaimer and found them accurate. Truth is an absolute defense.
Cooper ruled that the Purpose prong of the dead Lemon Test was constitutionally met. It's one of the reasons the appeals judges are looking askance at his holding.
Citation? Your quote does not appear in the article...a YEC website perhaps? Whether one judge was gulled into accepting that "it's only a theory," (or whether he's a Creationist himself) is irrelevant...the overwhelming scientific evidence is that evolution happened, ie is A FACT. The purely natural process of Darwinian heriabibility-variation-natural selection is a THEORY, not "just a theory," but of the major scientific theories, perhaps the best established theory in science. The alternative, that God the Intelligent Designer created all species just as they are today, is NOT a scientific theory, it is a religious belief (to which you are fully entitled) which the sticker is attempting to promote, which is an attempt to "establish" a religion.
"Judge Frank Hull also noted that Cooper said the sticker misleads students even though there was no evidence to support that position."
LOL, the last refuge of the bigot, YEC.
Find it yourself.
Sorry, but it's not necessary an "absolute defense" when the same words are EQUALLY TRUE OF ANY SCIENTIFIC THEORY. So why was only one particular theory out of hundreds or thousands addressed with special stickers? Is there any imaginable secular purpose for doing so, especially when many of these other unstickered theories literally are taught as fact?
Seriously. Is there ANY non-religious reason you can give, even a hypothetical one, for picking out theory X for stickers?
In other words while I was deeply offended at the "new math" when my kids were in school, I didn't have a constitutional leg to stand on.
The difference between us is that I understood that and took other steps to get them a proper grounding in mathematics.
???? No there isn't. Not when the whole point of raising the issue of the petition was the political pressure it exerted, or may have exerted, on the school board! If Marjorie Rogers is at a school board meeting, waving the very same petition, noting that it had the very same "2,300" signatures as it did when formally filed months later, and all this is covered in the local media, then the fact that it may have been formally filed months later is irrelevant. The school board knew about it before they passed the policy.
It doesn't matter but if you want to hang your hat on it, be my guest.
Well...that's nice. Creationists, of all those who post on FR, are not required to source their quotes. To tell the truth, I respect the YECers at A.I.G. a lot more than I do the so-called "Intelligent Design Theorists" at the so-called "Discovery Institute," because they are honest about their beliefs.
I have no problems with any-body's religious beliefs (edit: I do have a problem with those whose religious beliefs involve flying airplanes into buildings, for those I am fully in agreement with Ann Coulter, if you know what I mean)but in a SCIENCE class, to assert that evolution is only a theory, is a lie.
Like I said, it doesn't matter. Citizens have a constitutional right to petition their elected officials. It is dispositive of nothing and only interesting in that the court thinks the ACLU lied in their brief.
And for the record, I am niether an ID'r or a YEC. I am an American conservative who believes that God created the universe and all that implies. So while I am a creationist I recognize the following. Evolution small e is a fact. ID small id is a fact.
Just keeping it real Mean.
Whaddaya mean? I said the same myself here and here. I agree completely that evolution is in no way, shape or form protected. Nor should it be. (I would consider any sort of political "affirmative action" applied to any scientific theory a threat to science and to academic standards.)
As I said in #35 it's irrelevant what theory is being stickered. It might be the germ theory of disease. If it's being done by Christian Scientists, or those pressured by Christian Scientists, because of their religious opposition to the germ theory of disease then it is probably unconstitutional. If it's being done by random idiots out of pure stupidity, then it's not.
Don't we disagree enough as it is? Let's not manufacture disagreements that don't exist.
I know you're interested in this constitutional issue. You'd probably like a look see.
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