ATLANTA—A federal appeals court should reverse a lower court decision that declared Cobb County science textbook stickers unconstitutional, according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit by the Alliance Defense Fund.
The stickers contained the true statement that “evolution is a theory, not a fact” and nothing about any religious faith. A federal court judge agreed that the stickers were not applied to the textbooks for a religious purpose and were devoid of religious content. Nonetheless, he deemed the stickers a violation of the so-called “separation of church and state” for the sole reason that many people were aware that Christians liked the stickers.
“The district court’s decision seriously misstates the law. Are we really going to start declaring laws unconstitutional just because Christians happen to support them?” asked ADF Senior Legal Counsel Kevin Theriot. “No federal court has ever declared something unconstitutional just because it believes a general awareness exists that Christians are in favor of that thing.”
According to the brief filed today, “The District Court’s analysis will lead to absurd results…. The Establishment Clause was never meant to prohibit the passage of a secular law, for a secular purpose, simply because Christians actively lobbied for the law.”
Over 2,000 parents concerned about the presentation of evolution as fact rather than theory in school science textbooks filed a petition with the Cobb County School District in 2002 asking them to “clearly identify presumptions and theories and distinguish them from fact.” District officials consulted with legal counsel and responded by applying factual stickers to the textbooks; however, the ACLU filed suit to have the stickers removed.
The sticker applied to each textbook read, “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”
Read the full text of the amicus brief filed in the case,
Cobb County School District, et al., v. Jeffrey Michael Selman, et al., at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/CvSAmicus.pdf.
ADF is America’s largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
www.telladf.org