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| I think they would, if they thought they could. |
| By MARTHA RAFFAELE (Wed, Jan/05/2005) | |
| HARRISBURG, Pa. - Eight families who sued a school district over the presence of "intelligent design" in its curriculum will not ask a federal judge to block the lessons that are expected to start next week, an attorney said Wednesday. | They're asking for a full interdiction; why allow it to start? This is presented as if it is an admirable act of restraint and reason ... I think they're beginning to wonder if they can win or not! |
| Witold Walczak, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said that during depositions this week, Dover Area School District officials "either denied or could not remember making statements at public school board meetings ... about a desire to find biology textbooks that discuss creationism," even though local newspapers reported their comments last summer. | They're probably feeding the deposees news media versions of their purported statements, and the people who are supposed to have said these things don't recognize them. As has been abundantly demonstrated in our treatment of the topic on this website the media, in full collusion with the ACLU, are misrepresenting the entire issue as if it is an attempt on the part of the school board to inject religion into the science curriculum ... ridiculous! |
| Because the witnesses' statements raised questions about their credibility and because the case is so complex, the plaintiffs are asking a federal judge to schedule a trial in the spring instead of seeking an immediate court order that would prevent the lessons, Walczak said. | In the first place, note there are two sides: the news media reports of what was said, and the people quoted. When they don't agree, true: someone's credibility lies in the balance. Why the ACLU lawyers' assumption that the version at fault cannot be the reporting of what was said? Maybe the ACLU is hoist on their own liberal petard here; maybe the ACLU read the news story, believed it, and filed suit without bothering to corroborate the news media reporting with reality!
Secondly, note that the case is "so complex" because of the difficulty of interpretation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. An excellent discussion of this is offered by Judicial Watch in an amicus curriae brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the ACLU in another case; one pertaining to a non-religious display of the Ten Commandments. The Judicial Watch link is to the full 28 page brief, but you can get the gist from a single paragraph on page eight (8) under the heading "Summary of the Argument." What you see is the tip of an iceberg in which the ACLU has been championing an erroneous interpretation and through it, trying to remove every vestige of Christianity (not religion, for there is a curious tolerance of Islamic icons, prayers to Allah in schools, etc.) from American Public life. Their activities along these lines range from ... removing images of the Ten Commandments from public buildings ... to annual (since at least 1991) incremental progress made in "stealing" Christmas in its season so that this year (2004) your Christmas tree became a Holiday tree ... to attempts to reword or ban the Pledge of Allegiance, and now to this revival of their original pet project evolution which they first championed in 1927 in the famous Scopes trial. The issue, as JW so adeptly puts it is whether "the Establishment Clause directly protect individual rights in the same way the Free Expression Clause does? Or does the Establishment Clause protect individual religious expressions indirectly by prohibiting the creation of a national religion and prohibiting discrimination among various religious groups?" Clearly the intent of the Founders was the latter, however confusing precedent in 1941 and 1971 have muddied their intentions and opened the door to rampant litigation by the ACLU, not to mention a lot of bullying wherein the mere threat of a lawsuit is often sufficient to get compliance to whatever the ACLU demands, by budget strapped public entities. |
| "While we believe the introduction of intelligent design next week is unconstitutional, we did not want to ask the court to decide the matter without a hearing," Walczak said. | Maybe they do believe it ... however, again, this seems an uncharacteristically recalcitrant position for them to be taking! |
| Ronald A. Turo, a Carlisle lawyer representing the district, referred questions about the depositions to the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which the school board has retained to defend the district. Thomas More officials did not immediately return a telephone call Wednesday. | Note the wording here, all that needed to happen was the Thomas More people returned a phone call five minutes after it was received, to be able to truthfully write this. It is, after all, much better for the writer (press) to be able to state their position and cite the other view as a no-show; adds weight to their argument! |
| In a court filing Wednesday, attorneys for the district sought a dismissal of the lawsuit. They argued that the curriculum "does not advance religion, but merely provides the students of Dover High School with an honest science education ... by informing students about the existing scientific controversy surrounding Darwin's Theory of Evolution." | Now we get to the root of it. Attorneys for the district have filed for dismissal, and rather than rock the boat with a counter-demand for an injunction--which could sway to court towards the dismissal idea--ACLU is backing way off, suggesting a court date in the Spring to save face. |
| The curriculum language originally approved by the school board said students must be "made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and other theories of evolution, including but not limited to intelligent design." | |
| In November, the board sought to clarify the rule by saying that teachers would read a statement advising students that Darwin's theory "is not a fact" and that intelligent design "is an explanation of life that differs from Darwin's view." | |
| In December, attorneys for the district argued that the court order the plaintiffs were considering was unnecessary because reading the statement to students does not constitute teaching the concept. | |
| "What is going on is a one-minute statement that's being made in a 90-minute section in a multiple-month subject," Turo said. | |
| Walczak disagreed. | |
| "The parallel I would draw would be, if a social-studies teacher teaching World War II would talk about the Holocaust and make a statement - just a couple paragraphs - that there are gaps in the historical records of the Holocaust, and you should know an alternative theory that the Holocaust never happened," he said. | History is not science. Events are recorded, as they happen; it's not virtual reality ... they are not theorized. This is a stupid and irrelevant parallel selected for its cast of anti-semetism, which all reasonable and righteous people must abhor. Oh well if mentioning that evolution is only a theory would be like the holocaust, then let's have none of that! |
| The fight over intelligent design - a concept that holds that the universe is so complex it had to be created by a higher power - is the latest skirmish in nearly eight decades of litigation over evolution. | The idea that calling a theory a theory violates the following phrase (The Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights): "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... " is a concept so complex that it cannot simply have evolved from the original idea of the Founding Fathers, but must have been created as an entirely new species with no evolutionary predecessor, probably sometime in the 1940's or 1970's! |
| Since the board voted Oct. 18 to require that intelligent design be taught in ninth-grade biology classes at Dover High School - believed to be the first such requirement in the nation - the case quickly evolved from a local dispute into a nationally watched showdown between civil libertarians and religious activists. | Here the other side is rolling out it's own evolution parody! Please view previous newsmediabias.com articles on this topic ... this is not what the board voted at all, as we have shown in previous documents. The dispute didn't evolve, it was created by the Press. |
| The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued in December on behalf of parents who objected to the requirement. To defend itself, the school board hired the Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit group that bills itself as a champion of Christian freedoms. | This paragraph attempts to confuse the issue by juxtaposing the organization names/themes: "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" (I'd dub them AUSsies, but don't want to risk offending our cousins down-under) on one side and "a champion of Christian freedoms" on the other. But, if the AUSsies have a flawed interpretation of the very thing they name themselves after, then beleaguered public institutions will just have to find their champions where they can! |
| The plaintiffs argue that intelligent design is merely a secular variation of creationism, the biblical-based view that regard God as the creator of life, and maintain that the Dover district's curriculum mandate may violate the constitutional separation of church and state. | Clearly it doesn't violate the constitutional separation of church and state, as it doesn't seek to establish a national religion ... however, again I will say: ACLU's continued actions in this area DO threaten to "prohibiting the free exercise thereof [of religion]." |
| --- On the Net: Dover Area School District: http://www.dover.k12.pa.us American Civil Liberties Unions: http://www.aclu.org American United for Separation of Church and State: http://www.au.org --- Martha Raffaele covers education for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. | © Copyright 2004 AJJE Enterprises |
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