In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made
school boards. - Mark Twain? (1835 - 1910)  
===================================================
Associated Press 
  Update 3: Calif. School Scraps 'Intelligent Design' 
  By JULIANA BARBASSA , 01.17.2006, 02:33 PM 

  Under legal pressure, a rural school district agreed Tuesday to stop
  offering high school students an elective philosophy course on
  "intelligent design," an advocacy group said. 

  A group of parents had sued the El Tejon school district in federal
  court last week, saying it violated the constitutional separation of
  church and state by offering "Philosophy of Design," a course taught
by
  a minister's wife that advanced the notion that life is so complex it
must
  have been created by some kind of higher intelligence. 

  Ayesha N. Khan, legal director for Americans United for Separation
  of Church and State, which represented the parents, said Frazier
  Mountain High agreed to drop the class. 

  "This sends a strong signal to school districts across the country
that
  they cannot promote creationism or intelligent design as an
alternative
  to evolution, whether they do so in a science class or a humanities
  class," Khan said. 

  District officials did not immediately return calls for comment. 

  The settlement was announced just before a federal judge was
  scheduled to hold a hearing on whether to halt the class midway
  through the monthlong winter term. 

  In a landmark lawsuit, Americans United successfully blocked the
  Dover, Pa., school system last month from teaching intelligent design
  alongside evolution in high school biology classes. U.S. District
Judge
  John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is religion
masquerading
  as science. 

  However, some activists contended that Jones' ruling opened the door
  to teaching intelligent design in philosophy or religion classes. 

  El Tejon Superintendent John Wight said the subject was proper for a
  philosophy class. But Americans United argued the course relied
  almost exclusively on videos that presented religious theories as
  scientific ones. 

  The high school in the Tehachapi Mountains about 75 miles north of
  Los Angeles draws 500 students from a dozen small communities. 

  Sharon Lemburg, a social studies teacher and soccer coach who
  taught "Philosophy of Design," defended the course in a letter to the
  weekly Mountain Enterprise. "I believe this is the class that the Lord
  wanted me to teach," she wrote. 

  Similar battles over intelligent design are being fought in Georgia
and
  Kansas.

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