Remember the sad, sad story of the poor "persecuted teacher" that the World Net Daily reported on?

I was outraged when I first heard about it too!  A teacher was being fired for not removing his personal copy of the Bible from his desk!  His students were rallying around him!  It was anarchy!

And I was outraged.  I thought "What? the school district and the legal system have nothing better to do than harass a teacher about his choice of personal reading material?"

But, like most cases of "persecution" of Christians in America I've bothered to scratch the surface of...it all turned out to be a farce.

Here's the highlights:

In December 2007, the complaint continues, Freshwater burned an easily identifiable cross into the arm of at least two eighth-grade students with an electric device manufactured by Electro-Technic Products Inc. The complaint states, “Mr. Freshwater knew that the electric device, model BD-10A, could cause harm if placed in contact with human skin. As the eighth-grade science teacher it is Mr. Freshwater’s duty to understand and follow the manufacturer’s advice regarding the proper use of science equipment.”

Also at FCA meetings, the suit alleges that Freshwater distributed Bibles for the students present to give to other students at the school who were not present, and that an invited speaker told students “they should disobey the law to further their own religion, even if it means going to jail.” (FCA = Fellowship of Christian Athletes:  a non-school sponsored, student-run club.  Freshwater was a monitor for the club, but as a school official, he was not supposed to participate.)

White also, according to the court documents, disclosed the identity of the plaintiffs to Freshwater, although Short had promised them anonymity. After the parents raised concerns of retaliation against their son, a field trip was scheduled, with their son assigned to a certain group and chaperone. The suit claims that once the child’s identity was revealed, his group assignment was changed to the one led by Freshwater. As a result, the parents “were forced to prohibit their son from attending the school field trip.” That caused injury by depriving the son of a valuable educational experience and discouraging the plaintiffs from continuing to exercise their right to free speech.

There's a whole laundry list of complaints beyond these, putting up the ten commandments, using "code words" to inform the class which scientific priciples they were supposed to believe, and which ones were untrue according to the Bible....etc.

Those are somewhat annoying, because they either are not part of his job as a science teacher, or are actively part of him being an incompetent science teacher...but there are all sorts of teachers out there who fail to do their jobs, or who violate the boundaries of their jobs somehow.  It is usually small harm that children can recover from, and I don't see how we can get upset over it more or less because it is "christian" inappropriate behavior.

But the three items listed above are damaging, threatening, and frankly:  just plain creepy.  A teacher should be fired for deliberatly burning his religious symbol into students (plural!), teaching them to be anti-social and break the law for his religion, and...whatever he was going to do to that student after he got him reassigned to his group for the field trip.

Anyone want to take bets on what was going to happen to that student on the field trip?  Think Freshwater was going to give him cookies?

All I know, is that if I were that kid, I would not take my life for granted in an uncontrolled environment stuck in the middle of a pack of rabid student devotees, and the man I had complained about burning a religious symbol into my arm.

I might add, student devotees who have been encouraged to even break the law and go to jail in defense of their religion, who have a history of harassing and assaulting other students who just fail to support the teacher.

Quote from above link about what happens to students for just not wearing a tee-shirt supporting Freshwater:

Murdoch said one of Arie’s friends wore a T-shirt to school that read, “I don’t need to wear a special T-shirt to be a Christian.” That individual was reportedly pushed into the lockers and called a “stupid atheist b****.” That is not acceptable in Murdoch’s mind.

Every time I hear more about this case, I get more and more creeped out.