Posted on 12/13/2007 8:18:01 AM PST by ZGuy
A San Juan Capistrano high school student and his parents filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that his history teacher violated his constitutional rights by making "highly inappropriate" and offensive statements in class regarding Christianity.
James Corbett, who teaches European history at Capistrano Valley High School, consistently "demonstrates a sense of hostility toward religion," causing Christian students to "feel ostracized and treated as second-class citizens," according to the lawsuit..
Corbett told students during class that "when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth"; said that religion is not "connected with morality"; compared Christians to "Muslim fundamentalists" who want women to "stay pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen and have babies until your body collapses"; and suggested that churchgoers are more likely to commit rape and murder.
Teresa Farnan said her suspicions were aroused on the first day of school when her son asked her whether America was founded on Christian values, which he said his teacher had denied, "so I sent him to school with a tape recorder."
During the next two months he taped Corbett's lectures with the recorder in plain sight on his backpack.
"I'm not sure whether he saw me," the student said. "He's against Christianity and bashes it all the time. He's been indoctrinating us and not teaching the class; we don't need to be hearing his political views during school time when we should be learning."
"The teacher is a representative of the state and the Constitution requires government neutrality toward religion," she said. "This teacher's conduct and words clearly show he is hostile toward religion and is indoctrinating these kids, who are a captive audience."
The lawsuit asks that the teacher be removed from the classroom. "We will not seek damages if the teacher is removed," Monk said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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California’s democrat led legislators will be passing a law next year protecting the “free speech” of teachers in a classroom.
So....
Which side of this dispute do you think the ACLU will support?
Just kidding... I’m pretty sure I already know. ;^)
Humiliating Christians is on the agenda of the ACLU, the atheists, muslims, and the homosexuals. The sickos and whackos are setting the standard.
These great people are leading the fight!! Please donate what you can here!
You bet. The high church of humanism is obviously exempt from the imaginary Constitutional separation of church and state. Insane.
“These people are Christophobic.”
It is more a hatred than a phobia, IMHO.
When it gets bad enough to have to fight back, something unusual (and undesireable) is definitely going on.
There is at least one "religion" that undoubtedly deserves all the derision and contempt it gets but, even in that case, it is not a teacher's right nor his expected role to use his position in class to do so.
As for teaching morality in class, that is a minefield. I wouldn't trust anyone from the pervert persuasion to unravel ethics or morals --or religion-- for my children.
That's because in academia you are ostracized, tested (no kidding - gay test and black test), and you are treated like a second class citizen. If you're Catholic or Christian you must be pro-life so the pro-choice Nazis come after you. You also must be stupid even if your GPA is a 3.0 or above (3.81 here but stupid).
You also must be a conservative... ouch won't even go into what these liberals Nazis do to conservatives including stealing, plagiarizing your work and turning it in as their own... and your professor looks the other way because you're a conservative.
And either do the whole project yourself or become part of a team of lazy liberals. Most don't do their work. You'll be doing the whole project anyway.
Because thats what a fundy muslim or atheist would do.
Well, we have to admit that even Fundies and aetheists aren't ALWAYS wrong.
Back in the dark ages, my 9th grade biology teacher had to teach reproduction. He was very clear before he ever started. Said I can tell you the anatomy and the physiology, what parts are and how they work. You need to talk to your parents about everything else. He drew the line very clearly and diverted questions (even from the “tough kids”) that moved into morality.
I still respect him for that. After all it was a public school in the 70’s.
And I suppose he'd tell us Christians are stupid too.
Course there will, because his preaching is within the guidelines of the official state church.
This will be a long fight and result in money for the lawyers.
That's why I so highly recommend the OKIEDOC's soloution in post # 5.
Any living thing, from a mouse on up to a human society, can withstand some insult and injury. This kind of thinking is injurious to our society. It often is not clear how much is fatal until after the line is crossed. We are not at the fatal point yet, but it could be that it can be seen from here.
I notice that Michael Newdow, the nutcase from the Sacramento Calif area is still going at it.
In the lawsuit, the Plaintiffs assert that since the school district has their teachers lead the public school students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance during school hoursincluding the purely religious claim that we are one nation under Godthe Plaintiffs feel that this is a violation of the Constitution.
The assault on language is almost as painful as the assault on religion.
"Purely religious"?
As I read that, I see the correct secular assertion that we are one nation; whether everyone in it believes in God --- or not.
If the moron wants to challenge that, good luck to him.
Way back in the early ‘70s I had a wannabee with-it history teacher sophomore year of high school.
Part of the class was a study of religions. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam were all presented as glorious examples of spirituality.
Then came the discussion of Christianity. Suddenly this single religion was solely responsible for most of the evil in the world.
The neat thing was that the doofus had a policy of open discussion in class. (Being cool with the kids, ya know.) He also knew almost nothing about the religion he was trying to trash.
For three straight days I (and to a lesser extent another girl) disassembled him in class. Fourth day the class format changed to a lecture format for the rest of the semester.
For my final grade he gave me a D-. I challenged this and the three-person review board raised it to an A. Turned out I knew his subject a great deal better than he did.
He moved to another school the next year.
A wise teacher whom I can totally respect.
I have yet to see a coherent argument against this crucial role of parents; other than the circularly reasoned (and self-serving) argument that "many" parents fail to address the topic.
If that view of parents' role in society makes any sense, might as well have the nanny state start feeding our kids, clothing them, sheltering them and providing needed health care... ... wait.
...never mind...
You should have heard him on evolution. He laid out a scenario where he ran Genesis along side the fossil record and said our problem may be that we define the days of creation by OUR definition of a day and we neglect that God may have had a different definition of time.
He was without a doubt the best teacher I have ever had.
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