In probably the last gasp for Mount Vernon, Ohio’s proselytizing teacher, John Freshwater, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 4-3 today that his termination for insubordination was correct. In addition the court ruled that Freshwater had his rights violated when the school district demanded he remove his personal Bible from his classroom desk but that his additional actions in defying that order was enough to justify removing him.
The other day I posted an update to the Jackson, Ohio school district Jesus painting court case. Someone on twitter sent me a strong reaction tweet about it and the ensuing conversation shows that some theists don’t want religious freedom for others – just themselves.
Here is the original tweet:
Eight months after a lawsuit was filed against a Jackson County Ohio school district over a Jesus painting that had hung in a stairwell of the middle school building for 66 years, a final settlement has concluded the case. The Jackson City School District agreed to remove the painting from school district property and pay $3,000 in damages to each of the suit’s five anonymous plaintiffs as well as the legal costs for the ACLU and Freedom from Religion Foundation.
The district also tried to claim that since insurance paid out the damages, no taxpayer dollars were used. Taxes are used to pay the insurance premium, and will likely increase because of the claim, so like their idea that the Jesus painting was not a violation of the law, their idea about no taxpayer money being used to pay off the lawsuit is also wrong.
The director of operations of a Subway franchisee, in West Virginia, sent letters to several churches and congregations saying his company was “in need of Christian employees.” I’m sure some people will not see the problem with such a letter, after all a business should be able to make hiring decisions that prefer a particular group of people. Some may think the guy was just trying to reach out to a segment of people to recruit more workers. The problem is that such outreach is actually against state and federal law.
In 2012, anti-choice groups got a heartbeat bill introduced in the Ohio legislature in an attempt to make abortion technically illegal. The bill was passed in the Ohio House but died in the Senate. This week the heartbeat bill was reintroduced by the same man who introduced it in 2012, Republican state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann of Napoleon. This time they used the celebrity Quiverfull proponents The Duggar Family as props at the press conference. Even after Ohio just enacted some of the most restrictive regulations on abortion in the country, the forced-birth people are back again for more restrictions.
Town of Greece v. Galloway is a US Supreme Court case to heard in the fall that might set the boundaries for prayers before town council meetings so they aren’t a violation of the separation of church and state. One interesting thing to come out of the pre-hearing filings is that the Obama administration is supporting the prayers. I really never knew why it was so important for an elected body to pray before working since prayers don’t make elected officials do a better job nor do the prayers improve living in a certain town or county. As one church state group put it, a town council meeting ‘isn’t a church service and it shouldn’t seem like one.’
We found out this week that President Obama’s administration weighed in on the case in an amicus brief and took the side of the town council.
