This is hilarious. Admittedly, the school is now giving some kind of “seperation of church and state” training. Still - the fact that the method used to catch the teacher is now banned…
[quote]Meanwhile, Matthew said that Mr. Paszkiewicz recently told the class that scientists who spoke about the danger of global warming were using tactics like those Hitler used, by repeating a lie often enough that people come to believe it.
Mr. Lindenfelser said that the district did not investigate the report of that comment, which he said was not religious or a violation of “any kind of law.”[/quote]
[quote]Yes, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Al Gore-narrated movie about global warming, has been nominated for a Academy Awards, but that doesn’t mean it should be shown to school children, a Washington father has argued.
A protest by Frosty Hardison of Federal Way, which is south of Seattle, led to some roadblocks to the showing of the movie to his 7th grade daughter. Gore, a Democrat, is a former vice president.
[color=darkred]Hardison, 43, an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is “one of the signs” of Jesus Christ’s imminent return for Judgment Day, didn’t want the Hollywood liberal left to be preaching to his child[/color][/quote]
I am beginning to question how much democracy people need these days…
But when a leftist teacher is taped ranting for 20 minutes about George Bush and US foreign policy, he’s a victim of a KKKarl Rovian rightwing conspiracy.
[quote] High school in turmoil over teacher’s remarks about Bush
By Kevin Vaughan and Felix Doligosa Jr., Rocky Mountain News
AURORA — Controversy over a high school teacher’s comparison of President Bush to Adolf Hitler erupted into a day of turmoil Thursday — with a student protest, a threatened lawsuit and dueling talk shows.
At the center of the storm was Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish, whose lecture in a world geography class last month also included harsh words about capitalism, U.S. foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq.
At one point in a 21- minute, 40-second recording of the lecture, Bennish called America “probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth.”
Bennish, who has been a teacher at Overland since 2000, has been suspended and is under investigation for violating a school district policy that requires teachers to present varying viewpoints. He has hired a lawyer and may fight back in court as early as today.
“I know about 10 federal judges who are more than willing to teach the Cherry Creek School District what the First Amendment is all about,” his attorney, David Lane, said Thursday.[/quote]
[quote]Sean Allen, the student who recorded the lecture, brought Bennish’s comments to the attention of an online columnist and radio talk show hosts.
“About 80 percent of the time, he’s teaching his biased political opinions and giving them to our class as a fact.”
Allen didn’t attend class Thursday after getting negative feedback to his actions from fellow students. At the school Thursday, dozens of students walked out in support of Bennish. Other students said they thought Allen did the right thing and that Bennish should “teach, not preach.”[/quote]
The anti-Bush guy was teaching world geography, so I guess he was on-topic. (Seems like an important subject in world geography.) What was the Christian guy supposed to be teaching? I can’t get into the New York Times.
I’ve read it. Religious speech is no different from political speech.[/quote]
Read it again. Note:
We know from the writings of the authors of the Constitution (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc.) that they clearly intended to erect a “wall of separation between Church and State”. We also have a mountain of case law accumulated over the past two centuries interpreting the above Establishment Clause to mean effectively just that.
A public school teacher is a civil servant representing the State in the eyes of the law, and we know from court cases that have received a lot of media attention that teachers and adminstrators don’t have the right to hold prayer meetings, force students to say the Pledge of Allegiance (“one nation under God…”), or hand out church pamphlets. I think it stands to reason the courts aren’t going to allow a nutjob who thinks global warming is a sign of the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ and is therefore trying to convince children not to be afraid of it, to get away with it.
Now religious speech is a different matter. And I think there you are referring to the Free Exercise Clause:
That teacher has the Constitutional right to preach his own religion, but not while he is acting in the capacity of a civil servant (public school teacher).
[quote]Yes, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Al Gore-narrated movie about global warming, has been nominated for a Academy Awards, but that doesn’t mean it should be shown to school children, a Washington father has argued.
A protest by Frosty Hardison of Federal Way, which is south of Seattle, led to some roadblocks to the showing of the movie to his 7th grade daughter. Gore, a Democrat, is a former vice president.
[color=darkred]Hardison, 43, an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is “one of the signs” of Jesus Christ’s imminent return for Judgment Day, didn’t want the Hollywood liberal left to be preaching to his child[/color][/quote]
I am beginning to question how much democracy people need these days…[/quote]
I think when people start naming their children “Frosty” it’s a sign of Santa Claus’ imminenet return, and final plan for Santa
Claus to make earth a colony for the martians. Hey I read it in a book it must be true. I bet you that guy is a scream at a party.
I’ve read it. Religious speech is no different from political speech.[/quote]
Read it again.[/quote]
I have.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]Note:
We know from the writings of the authors of the Constitution (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc.) that they clearly intended to erect a “wall of separation between Church and State”. [/quote]
Interesting. I just read several books on the Revolution as well as the definitive biography of John Adams. “wall of separation between Church and State” was thrown in because of the use by the King of England (head of the Church of England) to use the State Religion to maintain power. The US has no state religion and “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state” do NOT mean “freedom from religion”.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]Now religious speech is a different matter. And I think there you are referring to the Free Exercise Clause:
That teacher has the Constitutional right to preach his own religion, but not while he is acting in the capacity of a civil servant (public school teacher).[/quote]
I see no difference between a teacher ranting about his religion and one ranting about his politics. Both are out of bounds and are using their position of power to dominate their students.
And is 21st Century America such an improvement over 18th Century America?
[quote=“Doctor Evil”]Interesting. I just read several books on the Revolution as well as the definitive biography of John Adams. “wall of separation between Church and State” was thrown in because of the use by the King of England (head of the Church of England) to use the State Religion to maintain power. The US has no state religion and “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state” do NOT mean “freedom from religion”.
[/quote]
You can’t have freedom of religion without freedom from religion.
Then you should konw what a dim view Adams took of the notion governance should be derive its authority from religion. From his, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America”, which is a collection of letters to various dignitaries written during his years as a diplomat:
John Adams and his rival Jefferson both were repulsed by the idea the Congress should include councils of clergymen to make official ecclesiastical decisions (such as whether it would be legal to open shop on Sunday), and both fought to prevent that from occuring. Other debates included whether God or Christ should be referenced in the Constitution and whether the Consitution should include blasphemy laws. Referencing the latter, in one of his last letters to Jefferson, Adams wrote:
For a good account of the early debates of the separation of Church and State, I recommend Susan Jacoby’s “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism”
I disagree. Well it’s true the phrase “separation of Church and State” was written by Jefferson to a group of Baptists to pacify their fears Congressionalism would become the state religion.
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
But Madison’s statements were even more clear:
[quote]The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).
Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov’t in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history (Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).
Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).
To the Baptist Churches on Neal’s Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).[/quote]
Pretty clear, no? This from the man who was primarily responsible for writing the both the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
There is a pernicious myth among the historically-challenged Christian Right that the United States was founded by deeply pious believers. But the letters, essays, and other writings of the Founding Fathers tell quite a different tale. In no uncertain terms our founders opposed the insinuation of the the clergy into government, and met opposition among the public and their peers for doing so. But it is they (Adams, Madison, Jefferson) who prevailed in the debates, and wrote a Constitution that was denounced as un-Christian and atheistic even in its own time. I find it ironic that today the religious Right seems to be completely unaware of these early debates and the side taken by the Constitution’s authors , and hold up the likes of Jefferson and Madison as the pinnacle of Christian piety.
I agree that both are out bounds. But given that all scientists accept human-driven global warming as a reality except for a small minority of scientists who by an amazing coincidence happen to be funded by Exxon-Mobil, I wouldn’t say it is “political ranting” to teach global warming in schools. Now a civil servant representing the State teaching children not to fear global warming because it is a sign of the Second Coming might just be in violation of the Establishment Clause. What do you think?
I would consider freeing the slaves, universal suffrage, and anesthetics as general improvements in the overall quality of life, yes.