With the next Ohio State Board of Education (OBE) meeting just days away, opposition to a lesson plan adopted in 2004 , that gave the green light for teaching Intelligent Design, heats up.
Some on the Board don’t see the big deal. Americans United for the Separation of Chruch and State want to give them a reason to be concerned.
In the next post of….. Secular Left
Ohio’s Board of Education (OBE) in March of 2004 adopted a “critical analysis of evolution” model lesson after a long hard fought campaign between those who support real science and those who want to force children to learn religion in the public schools.
In light of the Dover decision and this new evidence of the behind the scenes manipulation, Americans United are prepared to file a lawsuit against the OBE.
The Board has been meeting with its legal team and is trying to decide if they will remove the lesson plan.
The OBE will meet next Tuesday January 10 starting at 8 AM in Columbus.
Help them decide in the next post of Secular Left
A 3 judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court ruled on Tuesday December 20th that a 10 Commandments display in Mercer County Kentucky was not unconstitutional.
The case brought by the ACLU, concerned the Commandments viewed alongside nine other documents, including the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence at the Mercer County courthouse in Harrodsburg.
The court used the recent precedent of McCreary County, Ky., v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky that was decided by the US Supreme Court this past June.
The court used the common historical sham to justify the presence of the Decalogue and gave the ACLU some lumps for their involvement in the case.
In 2005, the mayor didn’t put up the Navtivity scene. He claimed that road work in front of city hall made it too difficult to keep the scene safe from damage. He intends to put it back up in 2006 along with symbols from other religions:
McPherson said he already has approved a symbol celebrating the winter solstice and another for the Hindu religion — a partman, part-eagle deity called Garuda who sometimes represents the sun.
Of course if he plans on including such symbols then he also needs one from Kwanzaa, Jain, Sikh, Witchcraft, magick, the occult, Sumerian, Zoroastrian, Baha’i, Islamic, Wicca, Neopaganism, Druid, Celtic, and on and on. If Mayor McPherson says no to any religious symbol then he is risking the city of Reynoldsburg to a law suit.
Just like in 2004, McPherson is ignoring the law and even the advice of his own City Attorney.
On December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III, In The United States District Court For The Middle District Of Pennsylvania, ruled that the Dover District School Board violated the US Constitution when they changed the 9th grade Biology curriculum to include Intelligent Design (ID).
Some of the members of the Board who voted for the change didn’t even know what ID was all about.
The Judge also took to task some members who lied under oath and tried to cover their tracks when the change caused some issues for the community.
Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearing is going to start in January and one area he is sure to be questioned about is his legal views on the separation of church and state.
Unlike the failed nomination of Harriet Miers, Alito has a judical history to look at to see if he may be a friend of real religious liberty – one that supports the separation of church and state.
According to an AP report this weekend, Alito’s record on religious cases is all over the spectrum.