Posted on 04/26/2009 5:01:15 AM PDT by kellynla
MISSION VIEJO, CA – A federal judge is expected to rule any day now on whether a high school history teacher accused of disparaging Christians in class violated the First Amendment and should be disciplined.
Capistrano Valley High School teacher James Corbett, a 36-year educator, was sued in December 2007 by sophomore Chad Farnan for purportedly promoting hostility toward Christians and advocating "irreligion over religion" in violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause.
The clause, which prohibits the government from making any law "respecting an establishment of religion," has been interpreted by U.S. courts to also prohibit government employees from displaying religious hostility.
"I'm pretty darn confident we will prevail," said Farnan's attorney, Robert Tyler, who works for the Christian legal group Advocates for Faith & Freedom in Murrieta.
The last round of legal arguments was filed in court April 9; the case is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge James Selna in Santa Ana.
"I'm very optimistic that we're going to prevail," said Corbett's attorney, Dan Spradlin. "Some phrases were taken out of context – that's all it was."
In the lawsuit, Farnan's attorneys cited more than 20 inflammatory statements attributed to Corbett, including "Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies – that's interfering with God's work" and "When you pray for divine intervention, you're hoping that the spaghetti monster will help you get what you want."
But in an April 3 tentative ruling, Selna dismissed all but two of the statements as either not directly referring to religion or as being appropriate in the context of a class lecture, including the headline-grabbing "When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
This anti-Christian propaganda & indoctrination has been going on in American colleges & universities for decades...which is exactly why we have the POTUS and HALF the American population we have today.
ping
Why don’t they tell the truth about Islam? All I hear is how peaceful it is and only a few(!) are really nuts. We must accomadate muslimes but NOT Christians....
The only way the 1st Amendment can be violated is if Congress passes a law that has something to do with ("respecting") the establishment of religion or that restricts the free exercise of religion.
Individual citizens cannot violate the 1st Amendment as written.
The fact that the 1st Amendment has been twisted by the courts over the years to the point that it pretty much means the opposite of what it was written to mean confirms that Alexander Hamilton was correct in Federalist #84 when he warned:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority, which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it, was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
They said Corbett encouraged them to think critically about their own convictions and to speak up in defense of opposite viewpoints.You know that's BS.
You know that's total 100% BS.
Any student who DARED question the leftist orthodoxy of this "teacher's" propaganda training sessions would have been roundly criticized and thoroughly ridiculed.
Let me ask the "teacher" this question:
Would you be comfortable PUBLICLY making all the statements you made but wherever you said "Jesus" you now say "Mohamed" and wherever you said "Christianity" you now say "Islam"?
Of course not. Of course freaking not.
Because, in fact, the LAST thing this "teacher" wants ANYONE to do is to think critically about ANYTHING.
This "teacher" is promoting the status quo religion of PC. Which is anti-Christian, anti-capitalism, anti-WesternCivilization and, above all, anti-American.
That's all this "teacher" is doing. There's no "critical thinking" going on here at all.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Not reason for a court case. The muslims have demonstrated that the way to get justice in these kinds of cases is to bomb something.
This kid still goes to this school? The answer is simple: Christian schools for Christian kids.
You take the fight to the enemy. It’s easy to only hang out with “your kind” and only go to your church building to gather. Check that Bible doctrine mandate requested on all Christians to follow.
Do you think this kid’s going to win this suit?
Nothing will happen. It’s politically correct to bash Christianity.
But say ONE word against the latest specially-privileged government protected religion, and you’ll be in big trouble.
It starts in government pre-K.
The very fact that the curriculum is officially atheistic and secular humanist teaches children to think atheistically!
Our atheistic government schools falsely train children to compartmentalize their religious belief into public and personal categories in one’s life.
SHAME on conservatives!
For decades conservatives have abandoned their responsibility to educated their children **fully** in the Lord. Every day they send their children off to Caesar's atheistic temples ( misnamed “public” schools) and then wonder why they are utterly incapable of defending their faith and our nation's founding principles on our Marxist dominated college campuses.
We have a Marxist president today because Conservatives have trained up their children to vote for one! SHAME!
Children should NEVER be used as missionaries!
Missionary work is an **adult’s** job! If Christ didn't use kids as missionaries we shouldn't either!
The government schools must be SHUT DOWN. Kids can't do that. It's a grown up job.
You have bought the lie, FRiend. The 1st Amendment forbids LAWS passed by Congress. It’s the LAWS that are the violation. It is Congress that is the violator.
Go back and re-read the 1st Amendment again with fresh eyes. It doesn’t say what the elitists of today say it says. It doesn’t say what the USSC has said it does.
If an individual, whether a private citizen or a government employee, is restricted from freely exercising religion, then the law under which that individual’s expression is restricted becomes the violation. Not the individual.
Usurpers have taken unto themselves the authority to change the clear meaning and intention of the 1st Amendment. These elitists puff themselves up and claim to be scholars of the Constitution, but they are pretenders instead.
So, what’s this kid going to do because I have a feeling he’s not going to win in court. If he’s not going to win in court, he is at the mercy of this moron “teacher” and others like him and the equally moronic school administrators. However, I do know that public schools do not like to lose students (at least that’s what my sister-in-law told me when she threatened to remove her daughter from a public school (she also taught in the same district years before everything turned south, so she knows) — public schools do not want to lose students.
This incident went too far. The parents should have stood their ground and threatened to remove their son. This never should have gone to court.
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