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http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=446

11/24/2004
Declaration of Independence ban at public school said bogus: Teacher reportedly forced pupils to listen to Christian dogma
Filed under: General— site admin @ 10:24 pm Email This
Declaration Of Independence banned!

The seemingly preposterous headline made major waves on the conservative Drudge Report and Fox News network Wednesday, joining Reuters and the Associated Press, in a misleading story that exhibited serious reportorial negligence, RAW STORY has learned.

The story, which reports that a California teacher has been banned from giving students documents from American history that refer to God, including the Declaration of Independence, is said a product of right-wing spin.

In fact, Cupertino public school principal Patricia Vidmar banned documents relating to God because the teacher had been forcing students to listen to what some felt was Christian propaganda, a media watchdog site reports. According to the site, the school had told him to stop but he did not comply, at which point the principal required that he submit his lesson plans to her in advance.

The teacher, Steven Williams, sued for discrimination and is now being represented by a conservative Christian legal group, Alliance Defense Fund.

Alliance Defense Fund boasts of other legal “successes,” including the right of Boy Scouts to refuse gays from ascending to leadership positions.

According to People for the American Way, a watchdog group, ADF was founded by 30 Christian ministries to serve as a counterbalance to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The organization defends the right of Christians to “share the gospel” in workplaces and public schools, asserting that efforts to curb such speech at work and schools are “anti-Christian.”

None of the major news agencies reporting on the story included quotations from the school or the principal, stating that a spokesman had referred them to a staff attorney. The articles suggest they did little research beyond the statements provided by William’s attorneys.

Reuters included scant information about the group who sued on Williams behalf, saying only that the group advocates “religious freedom.”

A media watch site, Seeing the Forest, first caught the story Wednesday evening.

“The school did not ‘ban the Declaration of Independence’ – that is just a lie,” Editor Dave Johnson, who is a fellow at the Commonweal Institute, wrote. “This story is like when you hear that a man was ‘arrested for praying’ and you find out he was kneeling in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour and refused to move.”

California’s Education Code does allow “references to religion or references to or the use of religious literature … when such references or uses do not constitute instruction in religious principles … and when such references or uses are incidental to or illustrative of matters properly included in the course of study,” as William’s lawyers have pointed out.

It does not, however, allow for forced religious dogma in public schools.

***Do some research before you accept some story that has been fed to you by Fox News and the mainstream Sensationalist (not liberal) media.