It is political correctness and anti-God behavior gone nuts. From the Reuters news wire...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God -- including the Declaration of Independence.Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.
"It's a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful," said Williams' attorney, Terry Thompson.
"Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country," he said. "There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence."
Vidmar could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose and claims violations of Williams rights to free speech under the First Amendment.
Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity.
Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists" and William Penn's "The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania."
"He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that's what the founders wrote," said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. "The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination."
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a California atheist who wanted the words "under God" struck from the Pledge of Allegiance as recited by school children. The appeals court in California had found that the phrase amounted to a violation of church and state separation.
Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Whatever happened to free speech? This is what liberal education has wrought. We get wackos judges and nutcase school administrators. This principal needs to be FIRED. If the nuts keep this up, we may get to see the red states turn blue by the next election.
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
November 25, 2004 01:06 AM
Absolutely agreed. To ban these materials is ridiculous. Children need to have their options open to them when learning about the world. That is what education is supposed to be. To ban religious materials that are a part of history is ludicrous. However, the same can be said of so many people who band books from school libraries that are important works of literature. I remember one such story of parents outraged and trying to sue a school over a book that depicted geigh relationships. They fought so that eventually the book was banned from the library. Knowledge should be free to all, and neither religious material or other literature should be banned without VERY good reason. Education is about choices and ALL of those choice should be presented without radical nuts of any kind interfering with the free distribution of knowledge. Soon we'll be attending book burnings like in the novel "Farenheight 451."
December 1, 2004 12:24 AM
I wrote this letter to the schools princibal:
You can to at the email below.
To: block_leann@Cupertino.k12.ca.us
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:23 PM
Subject: discrimination
Hello, please pass this email on to your school principle Patricia Vidmar
I wish to voice my opinion about your principal refusing to let STEVEN WILLIAMS present the declaration of independence.
The declaration is an important historical document of the USA. The fact that is contains allusions to God is just that a fact. You cannot change the facts or ignore them.
I realize that today the secular fundamentalists have hijacked our public schools. They have used lawsuits to instill fear, or admiration in school administrators and teachers at the thought of speaking of God. For your edification the establishment clause of our US constitution was created to prevent the government from providing guidelines on how to worship God or establish a state religion, not to prohibit the government from speaking of God. The words separation of church and state cannot even be found in the constitution!
The founders of our country believed that our rights come from God and not from themselves. If our rights come from man, then man can take them away. To not teach this to our children is to change history and to make them venerable to idiotic political systems like communism.
You should be ashamed. You have let fear of a few secularists and atheists rule their choices when they should fear the 90% of people in this country that profess a belief in God.
This is the reason why many people including myself send our children to private schools. I and many others will someday be able to vote in school vouchers because of stupid missteps like this.
Thanks,
Darryl
December 2, 2004 09:01 PM
please check this out for another point of view. Thanks.
http://entroposcope.blogspot.com/2004/12/stevens-creek-school-debacle.html