May 6, 2009 / 03:08 am
A federal judge has ruled that a California public high school teacher who made denigrating remarks about religion and Christianity violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment when he called creationism “superstitious nonsense.”
James Corbett, an Advanced Placement European history teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, was also accused of saying “when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth.” He allegedly compared prayers for divine intervention to hopes that the “spaghetti monster” will “help you get what you want.”
Corbett, who has taught for 20 years, also said “Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies — that's interfering with God's work.”
However, U.S. District Judge James Selna ruled that only Corbett’s comment calling creationism “religious, superstitious nonsense” violated the constitutional rights of former student Chad Farnan.
According to Corbett’s attorney Dan Spradlin, the remark about creationism came during a classroom discussion about a 1993 case in which a former Capistrano Valley High science teacher sued the school district because it required instruction in evolution. Spradlin said Corbett expressed his own opinion that the former teacher shouldn’t have presented his religious views to students, the Associated Press reports.