11-29-2004, 10:56 AM
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#41 (permalink)
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Junkie
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Originally Posted by Manx
Not quite. What I did was show that a headline of "Declaration of Independence banned in Calif School" is not even what the people bringing the lawsuit have claimed in their own PR. And there has been no claim by any party involved that "the very documents of our nations founding are being modified or banned to fit PC correctness in schools", as Ustwo so blithely mentioned.
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They cannot say that because the parties involved can't. However, the media can call it whatever they want. As long as you spin it as the DoI was banned people will believe it.
The article in question buries the fact that it was excerpts from these documents used to persuade young people that were banned, not the documents themselves. It's in the 8th paragraph. In print media that is on the continuing page. Most people read the headline and the first couple of paragraphs. Here is the article again (with comments in italics):
Quote:
Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School Nice catchy headline. It brings a sense of alarmism to it.
Wed Nov 24, 2004 04:12 PM ET
By Dan Whitcomb
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. The opening paragraph tries to make you think that the actual DoI was banned.
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. Try to take God from us?
"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. Make a blanket statement that all of the founders were fundies that wanted to convert everyone. Balance it with an attack on PC. Savy
"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." By true history, are they also going to show the Treaty of Tripoli? Remember that one? It's the one where we told the Muslims that the US has no official religion and the government does not endorse any specific faith. Are they also saying that no athiests were founding fathers
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.
Phyllis Vogel, assistant superintendent for Cupertino Unified School District, said the lawsuit had been forwarded to a staff attorney. She declined to comment further. I'm sick of reading these, "unavailable for comment lines. They are in the middle of a lawsuit, of course they aren't going to say anything.
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. God kicked out of the schools
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." Pure BS. Percentages are the easiest thing to manipulate. By saying this does it mean that 5-10 of the words are "God" or that there are documents that never mention it at all?
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. Nice attack at the 9th Circuit Court. The Christian Warriors won that battle, they won't win this one
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