The ACLU strikes again!

The Coffee Shop
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Evolution Case Opens in Georgia Court

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 8, 2004

ATLANTA (AP) – A warning sticker in suburban Atlanta science textbooks that says evolution is “a theory, not a fact” was challenged in court Monday as an unlawful promotion of religion.

The disclaimer was adopted by Cobb County school officials in 2002 after hundreds of parents signed a petition criticizing the textbooks for treating evolution as fact without discussing alternate theories, including creationism.

“The religious views of some that contradict science cannot dictate curriculum,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Maggie Garrett argued Monday before U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper. ** The trial is expected to last several days…

…The stickers read: “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”…
**

…The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that creationism was a religious belief that could not be taught in public schools along with evolution…
**

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And here they go again:

Michigan ACLU Wins Fight for Christian Free Speech
Jim Brown
Agape Press

May 19, 2004

The American Civil Liberties Union has waged a successful battle to get a Bible verse put back into a public school yearbook.

Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights, Michigan, deleted student Abby Moler’s entry from its 2001 yearbook because it was religious in nature. As valedictorian of her graduating class, Moler had submitted a biblical quote from Jeremiah 29:11 to be included in the high school yearbook.

The verse, which reads in the NIV, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,’” was significant to the graduating senior, and she chose its message to share with her class. However, school officials rejected the student’s choice and removed it from the yearbook before sending it to print.

The ACLU took up the cause and eventually reached a settlement with the school district over its censorship of the biblical verse. The school has agreed to place a sticker with Moler’s original entry in copies of the yearbook on file at Stevenson High School, and the current yearbook staff has been instructed to write her a letter of regret. Also, the yearbook staff has been ordered not to censor other religious or political speech.

ACLU of Michigan legal director Michael Steinberg explains that the school was misguided in its apparent attempt to prevent a state endorsement of religion. “Although the school itself is prohibited from promoting one religion over another, it cannot suppress private speech that was religious,” he explains, “and this was clearly a situation where they were confused. It was the private speech of the student, who was a devout Christian.”

Although the ACLU is often associated with arguments against religious expression in cases involving the so-called separation of Church and State, Steinberg says his group is not averse to representing Christians. “We represent people of all religions – usually minority religions because those are the types of religions that are most often suppressed or their free exercise rights are limited,” he says.

The ACLU regularly intervenes in cases in which individuals’ civil rights are being denied, including “situations where you have government suppressing the private exercise of religion by individuals,” Steinberg asserts

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I put my faith in God before I would trust the ACLU.

I hope that the sitting judge will apply the constitution rather than make new law like the Massachusetts supreme court.

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I don’t know if the challenge will hold up.

I think the sticker is obviously designed to promote creationism as a valid alternate theory, but there’s nothing untrue in the wording itself.

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Well, I give the ACLU lawyers credit for their conviction. They, after all, fought in court for the right of those Skokie, IL, Nazis to march, I think.

Truthfully, I’m glad they’re around. I may strongly disagree with some of their reasoning, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think they have a rightful place in the legal discussion of this sort of stuff.

K

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Dude, have you heard me come out and expound on “intelligent design” or creationism? Doesn’t my silence on the subject tell you enough, right there? And I’m well-trained in the scientific method, btw.

I think I’ve said that I believe that science in all its glory helps to prove the existence of God, and I’m a believer in evolution, which was taught as fact in my Catholic school experience.

Some literalists believe that the world is truly only 6,000 years old or so. I disagree. But I also believe this: that God lives outside of space and time, and that the creation story is a way to explain all of the billions of years it took to create the sun, the earth and the stars, as are many of the books in the Old Testament. Indeed, it’s often said that what may be one day in God’s existence could be 10,000 years in ours :slight_smile:

K

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Exactly. I think the struggle of man to explain his existence and the universe in which he lives is age-old. I prefer to see some sort of intelligent design in all of this complexity, while others (especially those who are adherents of chaos theory) try to explain an intelligent “randomness” to everything.

It’s the old story of a butterfly flapping its wings in China and causing a tornado in Kansas, I guess :wink:

K

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Ah yes, just a theory, just like clinton said. Unfortunalty, there really is no such thing as “just a theory.”

Evolution, while perhaps not a fact, is based on fact. Microevolution is proven science, you can observe it in the world today. Macroevolution is also supported by multitude of facts and historic events and even the literal translation of the bible, however the exact 100% precise explanation and description of it would be considered to be theory.

I appreciate the having the aclu around, though i disagree with them more often then not.

Either way, evolutionism and creationism are not in conflict. If the church asks me to believe that by the grace of god, a virgin gave birth to god (who just happened to be human, as well as god, not god in human form or a very blessed human), then i see no reason why i shouldn’t believe that, through the grace of god, evolution was god’s mechanism for creation.

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“Michigan ACLU Wins Fight for Christian Free Speech”

One for the ACLU. It’s still out of balance. Besides, that one was a slam dunk on free speech (something the ACLU fights for) much more than religious freedom.

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**i see no reason why i shouldn’t believe that, through the grace of god, evolution was god’s mechanism for creation. **

That’s what all my Jesuit teachers taught me. I don’t know what they’re teaching down Protestant way, but I don’t imagine it’s much different. And there have always been literalists among us. I’m still not willing to lump them in with the Islamofascist enemies that we’re at war with, though.

K

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“They, after all, fought in court for the right of those Skokie, IL, Nazis to march”

Yes they did, but they didn’t fight for the rights of the folks in Skokie (A HUGE Jewish enclave) to not be reminded of what Nazis did to them and their family members, and they didn’t fight for the Skokieans right to shoot the Nazi bastards.

The Nazis specifically wanted to stir up shit by going into a Jewish community, and i don’t think you should have that right, anymore than you have the right to shout “FIRE” in a crowded theater.

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“Evolution, while perhaps not a fact, is based on fact.”

Evolution is based on Darwin’s observations, and there are more holes in it than in a warehouse full of Swiss cheese. Primarily, no one has found any linkage to demonstrate that homo sapiens evolved from anything.

The theory does, however, do a decent job of explaining the extinction of some species.

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“In the case of evolution, many aspects of the theory are very clear. There are no holes.”

No holes? Explain then, the linkage between homo sapiens and any pre-existing species, iow whence came you?

Evolution theory explains extinction, but does little to domonstrate how species “evolved”

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I see where you’re coming from and I don’t personally disagree with it. I think they based it upon the right to engage in speech, hateful or not, in a public place.

My recollection is that we’ve since tried to tighten up what can be regulated in terms of “hate speech” and what cannot. This one definitely has implications, though, for a slide down the old slippery slope. I’d rather not restrict anyone’s ability to say what they think, no matter how hurtful, than to go the other way, with the “PC Police”, for example.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t have the right to answer back just as forcefully. I’m for the solution that Jake and Elwood Blues came up with in “The Blues Brothers”, when confronted with their own Nazi marchers :wink:

K

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“Evolution is based on Darwin’s observations”

absolutly wrong. Darwin wasn’t even the first person to try to develop the theory.

edit; grammer
edit; spelling of grammar

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“absolutly wrong. Darwin wasn’t even the first person to try to develop the theory.”

No, but he wrote the book. His theory still has gaping holes, btw, which was my point…

grammer?

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Read the last paragraph and give it a rest. Of course the ACLU finds itself at odds with Chritianity more than other religions in this country. Chrisitanity is most prevalent, and therefore more likely to tread on the rights of minority religions. I’d bet they come to the aid of more blacks than whites too. Does that mean they are anti-White?

“Although the ACLU is often associated with arguments against religious expression in cases involving the so-called separation of Church and State, Steinberg says his group is not averse to representing Christians. “We represent people of all religions – usually minority religions because those are the types of religions that are most often suppressed or their free exercise rights are limited,” he says.”

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The best “proof” I have that evolution is voodoo science is when I witnessed a baby being born. To say that humans “evolved” from primordial soup to the point of having the ability to give birth to a fully functioning (physically) human is beyond belief.

That is only “proof” of your closed mind.

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“Yes they did, but they didn’t fight for the rights of the folks in Skokie (A HUGE Jewish enclave) to not be reminded of what Nazis did to them and their family members, and they didn’t fight for the Skokieans right to shoot the Nazi bastards.”

And again you fly right off the edge of the world and into the abyss. Since when does anyone have a legal right not to be offended? And since when does anyone have the right to shoot people they don’t agree with, even if those people are trying to stir things up?

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How is this proof against evolution? That baby started as a couple of cells and a bunch of “soup” and developed into a human being. How is it so difficult to believe that, with all the genetic similarities betwene humans and apes, that we’re related?