Ohio public school teacher ordered to remove Bible from classroom desk

 

A standoff may be in the works between a public school teacher in Ohio and his bosses, who ordered him to hide his personal Bible from students.

 

 

John Freshwater has taught science at Mount Vernon Middle School for 20 years and last year was named "Teacher of the Year." For the past 18 years, Freshwater has kept his personal Bible on his desk in order to provide strength and encouragement.
 
Administrators recently ordered Freshwater to remove the Bible, citing a violation of separation of church and state. But Freshwater's spokesman, Dave Daubenmire of Pass the Salt Ministries, says the First Amendment gives Freshwater the right to keep his Bible on his personal desk.
 
"The issue is his own personal faith, and whether or not ... a teacher become[s] a second-class citizen," argues Daubenmire. "Does a teacher forfeit all of his constitutional rights, all of his God-given rights, when he becomes a school teacher?"
 
Daubenmire, who was a public school football coach for many years, was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for conducting prayers with his players before games. As he did in those skirmishes, the former coach says Freshwater will stand his ground.
 
"We're at the point right now were the ball's in ... the court of the school district, to see what they want to do," Daubenmire explains. "If they try to [take] legal action against Mr. Freshwater for his failure to remove his Bible, I can tell you this: the battle will be on. And I think the law is very murky there -- the whole idea of separation of church and state is a fraud anyway [and] we want to try to expose it as a fraud."
 
The school has taken no formal action against Freshwater, but students showed their support of Freshwater by holding a "bring your Bible to class" day.

a quite from someone 

If the man had had a Koran, no one would have said a word.

exactly.

A christion club here in AZ is suing to be able to use PA system just to announce gatherings.  They are the only club prohibited from using the pa system, their horrible offense, announcing the group will meet at flag for morning prayer.

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I am so tired of hearing the same arguements over and over again.  They use the "separation of church and state" as an excuse to DISCRIMINATE against those who want to have a little prayer, a little belief, and a little faith.  Personally, I "believe" that when GOD was removed from the schools, the standards went with him.  Now the schools are "lowering" their standards instead of enforcing educational disciplines which bring lawsuit after lawsuit.  I believe that it's time to let the teachers teach however works best and if you don't like it, it's your "right" to remove your child from that class or that school.

 As for Mr. Freshwater. . . GOOD FOR HIM!

There is nothing in the Constitution that says separation of Church and State. The Constitution says Congress will make no law regarding the ESTABLISHMENT of Religion nor make laws PROHIBITING religious worship. Our founding fathers knew the importance of Faith but did not want our nation to be like England which had an official state church, namely, the Anglican Church where it's leader the Archbishop of Canterbury was appointed by the crown. The Archbishop of Canterbury also acted like an advisor to the crown in ways like the Secretary of State reports to the President. Our founding fathers did not want the Church to interfer with government affairs and they knew that government should state out of affairs regarding faith. Our founding fathers did know that without the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of Faith our nation would collapse. That right to practice one's faith was gaurenteed by the Constitution.

In simple language: Government stays out of matters of faith and the Church stays out of making official positions regarding government matters.