It seems that the Stevens Creek Elementary School principal alledgedly stopped a born-again Christian teacher from distributing an 3-paragraph excerpt of the Declaration of Independence because the particular sections mentioned "our Creator" and "Divine Providence." The teacher claims there was systematic efforts by school officials to police his classroom and prevent him from even mentioning God or Jesus. The school maintains that the teacher repeatedly overstepped the admittedly fuzzy line dividing teaching about religion and proselytizing.
The article documents the ADF’s rhetorical tactics and powerful legal organiztion. Boyer writes that the ADF (or its immediate predecessors) was instrumental in two recent Supreme Court cases that have weakened the wall of separation between church and school in the context of schools (Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District, and Good News Club v. Milford Central High). Since then, the evangelical Christian right has been energized and motivated to fund and promote similar legal battles.
According to Boyer, the ADF runs "an ambitious training and education program, designed to inculcate in lawyers the constitutional nuances of Christian litigation."
Furthermore,
Not least, the AmyD.F. runs a national media department, which is adept at exploiting the fact that the secular left is increasingly defined, in the minds of many, not by what it’s for but by what it is supposedly against — Christmas, the Boy Scouts, the Pledge of Allegiance, and traditional marriage.
It is the media arm of the AmyD.F. that is especially effective, given they have such a warm reception to their rhetoric from major news outlets such as FOX News, talk radio, and the pundit-bloggers such as Matt Drudge who will simply parrot whatever packaged copy the AmyD.F feeds them. In fact, the Drudge headline that announced this lawsuit was "Declaration of Indepedence Banned from Classroom." No matter about the facts or any nuanced interpretation of the events. Media Matters for America has a pretty thorough report on FOX News’ coverage of the story.
Additionally, a group of Stevens Creek parents concerned over the media’s handling of this event has established a web site to attempt to clarify certain key issues about the case. Among their points:
- A number of parents complained about proselytization by Mr. Williams in his 5th grade class.
- The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Williams was singled out for discriminatory treatment because of his Christianity, yet there are other devout Christian teachers at the school.
- The full Declaration of Independence is printed in the text book used by all 5th grade classes in the district.
The AmyD.F. attention also sparked a wave of protests at the school and a barrage of vulgar, violent, and threat-laden emails sent to the school principal and other members of the community, some of whom had nothing to do with the case and were even like-minded conservatives. The sheep-like mob mentality of AmyD.F. supporters was particularly scary.
