stand up for REAL science

Remember John Freshwater, the science teacher who burned crosses into his students' arms, and who had been teaching creationism to 8th graders in lieu of science?.

According to the Columbus Dispatch,

Freshwater is to have a chance to contest the allegations at a hearing on the school board's intention to fire him. Officials expect the hearing to run today through Friday and to resume on Oct. 28.

Freshwater's supporters erroneously blame Freshwater's firing on the fact that he defied the school administration's order to remove his Bible from his desk. These supporters are trying to throw up a deceptive smokescreen in order to distract from the central issues:

Freshwater physically abused students.

Freshwater refused to teach the district science curriculum.

What's the big deal about the second one?

"He has put his religious views above his duty to the students," said Dick Hoppe, a visiting biology professor at Kenyon College near Mount Vernon. "It looks to me like he was running what amounts to a private Christian school embedded in the public school."

An outside investigator found that Freshwater's former students frequently had to be retaught in high school what they were supposed to have learned in his eighth-grade class. One administrator said that, for 11 years, teachers and others in the community have complained that Freshwater preached his Christian beliefs in class and slammed scientific theories.

Each and every year, when Freshwater signed his teaching contract, he was promising to abide by the district curriculum in return for his paycheck. Each and every year he taught creationism instead of science, he turned his signature into a lie. And we know what Christ thought of hypocrites.