Posted on 02/22/2006 6:52:51 AM PST by Nextrush
The Dover Area school board voted Tuesday night to pay 1 million dollars in legal fees to the attorneys that successfully sued the school district over its intelligent-design policy.... After board members voted, Beth Eveland, one of the parents who sued the district, told the board she and other plaintiffs at the meeting considered it a fair offer. However, she said they were dismayed that the taxpayers and children were left with the bill and believed the old board members should be held accountable. The smallest amount of accountability is an apology, she said.... Heather Geesey, the only remaining member from the previous board, said after the meeting that she took offense to Eveland's remarks. "I don't think I have anything to apologize for," she said. Former board member Ronald Short also isn't planning to apologize. "I don't have anything to apologize for," Short said. "I believe in what the board did before." The $1 million dollar figure was the result of an agreement worked out between plantiffs' attorneys and the district's solicitor. In exchange, the board agrees it will not appeal.... Rothschild, the plantiffs lead attorney, said lawyers will request an order in court entitling the plantiffs to more than $2 million in costs.... Plaintiffs attorney wanted to make sure that other public school districts pondering whether to pursue a religious agenda will think twice, Rothschild said, We think it's important that the public record will reflect how much it costs to stop an unconstitutional action," he said. "Still, we also recognize that this is a small school district."...... Approximately $250,000 will go directly to recovering out-of-pocket expenses, Rothschild said, and will be divided among American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Pepper-Hamilton. The rest will go toward the ACLU and Americans United.....
(Excerpt) Read more at ydr.com ...
Huh? I'm kind of baffled by this statement. Where in the constitution does it say this?
I think it was actually the Thomas More Law Center who was shopping the case around.
Another million to the ACLU - Hallelujah! The only way that the public schools will survive another 30 years will be government coercion and lawsuits to prevent the break up of their monopoly. In the mean time, they'll keep churning out kids who don't know history, can't read, can't write, can't do math but they'll sure as hell know that the earth is gazillions of years old and that man came from an amoeba. Precious!
That argument applies to every lawsuit that's ever been filed. It's always somebody's opinion. And in this case there was no "million-dollar lawsuit" or even a million-dollar award, just the loser paying the fees.
Wasn't it conservatives who agitated for "loser pays", as a key part of tort reform?
We don't need to keep religion out of schools nearly so much as we need to keep lawyers out.
But let's skip on past that part ~ we come to the FIRST AMENDMENT. It clearly prohibits the government from interfering with the free exercise of religion.
You will notice, of course, that even Islam is "protected" from such intrusion, and that's a religion that has a doctrine to the effect that telling a lie to protect the religion is OK!
The only way we can be sure that the government is not interfering with free exercise is to make sure the government does not involve itself in even making inquiries about religious beliefs.
For instance, if you are in court and the prosecutor demands "state your religious affiliation", you do not have to do so. You can, if you wish, but you cannot be compelled by penalty or threat of penalty to do so. In fact, you can lie about it. The government has no right to challenge even your obvious lies regarding religion.
If it were otherwise you would see most real Americans rising up in arms to overthrow a dictatorial regime ~ judges would be getting dragged through the streets by mobs intent on hanging them, etc., etc.
Here we have only one judge and there are procedures that we can use to deal with him.
Until that's done we really have no business worrying about the former school board members.
They are gone. The people spoke. The ACLU, on the other hand, has brought economic harm to good, honest members of the National Education Association, and all is right with the world.
The only way we can be sure that the government is not interfering with free exercise is to make sure the government does not involve itself in even making inquiries about religious beliefs.
For instance, if you are in court and the prosecutor demands "state your religious affiliation", you do not have to do so. You can, if you wish, but you cannot be compelled by penalty or threat of penalty to do so. In fact, you can lie about it. The government has no right to challenge even your obvious lies regarding religion.
Ok....I'm not even know where to begin. So, I'll just point out that inquiring about the defendants' religious affiliations was not the issue at all. The issue wasn't what the defendants believed or with what religious they were affiliated. The issue was whether their religious beliefs were the motivation for their actions. Completely different things there.
Also, you seem to forget that there are two parts to the 1st Amendment religion clause. Yes, there is no interfering with free exercise, but, there is also no establishing religion. That, my friend, is what the court was inquiring into. Just out of curiousity, how do you suppose a court could enforce either part of the religion cluase if they were not allowed to make any inquiry that even touched on the topic of religion?
A crazed school board introduced a religious doctrine and text into the science curriculum. They got sued for violating the First Amendment. Simple. The school board then lied, and claimed that there was nothing religious about the "theory" of ID, or their recommended text (Pandas) or their motives. They claimed that they were only interested in science.
That's the situation that was presented to the judge. The school board's defense was "no religion, just science." So they chose to make their ID "theory" and their book the issue in the case. The judge had no choice but to examine their defense. The result didn't make the school board look very good. The voters then tossed them out: Dover boots board.
Blame the judge if it makes you happy. But the bad guys in this shabby drama were the school board.
Religious indoctrination is not allowed in public schools. The board tried to get ID put in the school as science. Unfortunately for them they had as a real agenda religious indoctrination, which came out when the judge caught their perjury.
Maybe it's the other parts, e.g. speech, free assembly, press ~ that clearly indicate "freedom of conscience" ~ with the state having no privilege of delving into your fundamental beliefs.
(Hope I restated that satisfactorily) ~ It's simple ~ go to another country.
This is a secular state and religion must never be on the minds of anyone engaged in the business of serving as an agent of the state.
Second question ~ when did we give the government the authority to examine religious truth? Where are the official inquisitors, and what are the modern instruments of torture that are to be displayed before their victims so that they might recant beforehand?
Do you guys know how positively Medieval you seem to a modern thinker dedicated to the maintenance of a totally secular government?
No, that is fact. ID in its current formulation cannot function as a scientific theory according to the standards of science. Individual bits of scientific research being done under its mantle to challenge points of evolution may be valid, and if they stand up to scrutiny should be put into textbooks, but they do not constitute a scientific theory in themselves.
It appalls me that you are willing to punish minority opinions on this or any other issue with million dollar lawsuits.
It appalls me that some people on a school board would risk their district's finances in order to push a personal religious agenda in opposition to the will of those they represent.
Normally, no. But religion was the board's motivation for pushing ID into a government-funded curriculum, so the board was the one that put religion on the table.
No, you did not restate my question satisfactorily. Your restatement is an entirely different question.
My question was how courts could enforce the religion clauses if they are restricted from making any inquiry that even touches on the subject of religion. I said nothing about the judgement of a "religious truth." I think that you know there is a difference, and I think you are just trying to bait me rather than have a genuine conversation. So, I'm done.
Now, you wanna' get Medieval and run an Inquisition to see if someone had the right, or wrong, religious thoughts when they were doing their job, take that to some other place.
You were done with your first post. A democratic country should rely first on it's democratic processes. This particular problem did not call for court intervention. In any case, the judge's inquiries were unconstitutional.
Of course you do if your religious affiliation is germane to the case.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.