Suit Claiming Teacher Insulted Christians May End Soon

orange county register ^ | April 22, 2009 | SCOTT MARTINDALE

[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."

[RedMonqey]

So, what’s this kid going to do because I have a feeling he’s not going to win in court.

I'm sure there are other public schools in the area he could apply. Like it or not the parents decided the principle was worth whatever emotional and physical pain inflicted upon the child involved. It would be a travesty to walk away without some sort of victory.

The family indeed is in a very tough situation, all options include sacrifice and pain. Stay and face possible continued harassment or uproot the family and break friendships and extended family bonds.

Not to be flippant, but as as Rush used to say "The pioneers get the arrows"


Let us pray they have the strength to get through this as a family.

[savedbygrace]

However the US Constitution has been updated and interpreted differently than what the Founding created.

The Constitution hasn't been legally updated WRT the 1st, but it has been interpreted, interpreted to mean something totally different from the original intent.

The only legal way to update the Constitution is through the amendment process that is specified in the Constitution itself.

Did you read my post #5, and the quote from Federalist 84 from Hamilton?