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FUNDAMENTALISM

Far-Right fundamentalists launch intimidation campaign against Stevens Creek Elementary School Principal in Cupertino, CA
- Far Right group filed utterly frivolous lawsuit against the Principal and the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) 
on behalf of teacher Stephen Williams who used slanted, dubious or false propaganda to push a "Christian" nation perspective on the school students and then claimed "discrimination" when he was stopped from pursuing this
- As of 4/15/05, a judge dismissed three out of four claims in the lawsuit outright
- As of 8/12/05, the lawsuit was dropped with the school prevailing entirely.

[To contact me or find out more about this site, click here.

Last update: 09/30/2005

PREFACE

I set this page up to bring more attention to this issue (the false claim "Declaration of Independence Banned...") at Stevens Creek Elementary school in Cupertino, CA (an affluent city in Silicon Valley), following the lead of Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest who brought it to my attention. Since then I have contacted a few sources who provided me additional details. (Updates made on this page are listed here.) 

A group of over 100 concerned parents from the Stevens Creek Elementary School have created a website (We the Parents) aimed at repudiating the false charges from the Alliance Defense Fund and the teacher Stephen Williams and the misleading/false negative media coverage of the school. Please visit their website to learn more. On 1/25/05, they released a letter to the Alliance Defense Fund asking for an apology and a retraction of their false press release. Here is the text of that letter. As of 1/31/05, the school district filed a motion asking the Court to dismiss ADF's frivolous lawsuit - see here for their press release and here for their actual brief (link thanks to one of the parents). ADF had previously amended their original lawsuit and (curiously) deleted the exhibits (analyzed in this page) from the amended lawsuit. It appears they have also eliminated the original lawsuit from their webpage since I have been unable to find it. Copies of the original lawsuit and amended one are here.

As of 4/15/05, a Federal Judge, rightly, dismissed three of the four claims in the ADF lawsuit as having no merit (thanks to two of the parents who wrote to me with this update). The CUSD press release (via We The Parents) notes this:

APRIL 28, 2005 – Today, Federal Court Judge James Ware issued a ruling to dismiss three out of the four causes of action listed in the lawsuit filed by a teacher against representatives of the Cupertino Union School District. The three causes of action being dismissed are: (1) representatives of the district violated the free speech rights of the teacher; (2) there was a vagueness in the district’s policy regarding the use of supplementary materials; and (3) the teacher’s right of religious expression had been violated. 

The one remaining cause of action that will be allowed to move forward is that the representatives of the district allegedly treated the teacher differently because of his religious beliefs. The Court’s decision was based strictly on the fact that the plaintiff’s allegations at least made a sufficient argument that, if proved, could support an equal protection claim.

The case will now move to the discovery phase where the facts will begin to be revealed. Thereafter, representatives of the district will be filing a motion for summary judgment, seeking a dismissal of the remaining cause of action. The court has tentatively scheduled this motion for October 2005.

As one of the parents who forwarded this information to me noted (in part):

...The judge, after raking the ADF lawyer over the coals for wasting the court' time, dismissed 3 of the four charges against the principal and district. The judge ruled that Mr. Williams freedom of speech was not violated in any way. These were the charges included in the original suit discussed on Hannity and Colmes and in the major news media last November. After several weeks, the case was amended to include a charge that Mr. Williams was discriminated against based on his religion. This is the one count the judge (reluctantly as reported by parents at the hearing) allowed to go to discovery. Apparently the ADF claimed they were not ready to present their case and needed more time. The local feeling is that this charge will be next to impossible to prove, and that it is likely the ADF will withdraw quietly over the summer...

It has been my position all along that this is a frivolous and bogus lawsuit without *any* merit (see below). ADF's lawsuits, like those of other "Christian Right" groups have historically been more successful on "Free Speech" claims, and the fact that Stephen Williams' claim on free speech violations was summarily dismissed shows how extraordinarily weak his case is. The remaining (equal protection) claim should easily be dismissed once the facts of the case come out, since it is an utterly laughable and bogus claim - as I have shown here.

As of 8/12/05, the Far Right Alliance Defense Fund and its client Stephen Williams have dropped the remaining frivolous claim in their lawsuit against Stevens Creek School Principal Patricia Vidmar and the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) voluntarily (thanks to a Stevens Creek parent for the tip). This is consistent with my prediction that this lawsuit would not pass the laugh test.

The parents group We The Parents has provided some links on this development. Here's a copy (PDF) of the settlement agreement which was the basis of the lawsuit being dropped. The San Jose Mercury News continued its egregiously sub-standard coverage of this whole episode with an underwhelming report about the end of the lawsuit. I say underwhelming because it starts with this paragraph (emphasis mine):

The teacher whose discrimination lawsuit thrust Cupertino's Stevens Creek Elementary School into the national debate over religion in schools has withdrawn his case, with both sides agreeing to dismiss all claims.

Both sides? The Cupertino Union School District or Stevens Creek Elementary School did not file a lawsuit claiming anything. They just defended themselves using taxpayer money against Stephen Williams' and the Alliance Defense Fund's remarkably, and egregiously, frivolous fraud of a lawsuit. 

The Mercury News also highlights one of the terms of the agreement pursuant to the withdrawal of the lawsuit.

No money will be exchanged, since both sides agreed to cover their own legal expenses

For Stephen Williams and the ADF to get away with their frivolous, baseless, fabrications (see here for why I say that) with no consequences (particularly financial) is a travesty. With their frivolous lawsuit they forced the County to use precious taxpayer dollars, during a time of education budget cuts in the state, to defend against their baseless claims. Clearly, ADF and Williams have demonstrated a contempt for education and taxpayer dollars. [ADF is free to file lawsuits that have merit, based on an honest set of claims - I am not opposed to that; however, from the very beginning it was clear that this lawsuit was a hoax].

The settlement agreement makes it crystal clear that no changes have been made to the school district curriculum or guidelines, i.e., the school and the school district were right and never did anything wrong. Williams and the ADF have signed the agreement which states, among other things, that:

1. The parties agree that existing District policy allows teachers, no matter what their religious beliefs, to use appropriate educational material (including supplemental handouts of historical significance) during instructional time that has religious content - so long as it is objective, age appropriate, and in compliance with the curriculum as prescribed by the District, and not being used to influence a student's religious belief (or lack thereof).
...
3. The parties agree that the District, acting through the Superintendent, Superintendent's designee, school board and/or site administrator, has the final say in determining whether instruction or educational materials is appropriate and in compliance with the curriculum.

4. In consideration of the above mentioned agreements, Williams hereby withdraws his complaint in this case against all Defendants, with prejudice.

So much for all of ADF's fake claims in their lawsuit about discrimination and other nonsense. So much for all the fakery that their propagandists in the mainstream media (especially the freely mendacious hosts at Fox News) spread - which led to chaos in the school and vile threats against school employees (especially the Principal Patricia Vidmar). Do these people have no shame?  

On 9/30/05 I published an email interview with three parents from Stevens Creek Elementary School at The Left Coaster: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

SUMMARY

A quick review of the lawsuit and the media brouhaha instigated by Stephen Williams' supporters indicates that this has all the makings of a typical right-wing hit job: a frivolous lawsuit, false propaganda (by the plaintiffs and the media) and intimidation/character assassination [No offense is intended here to conservatives in general, I am really referring to the right-wing media and Far Right here. There are genuinely concerned (and staunch) conservatives who don't approve of this lawsuit or the Far Right's/media's behavior - and who support Principal Vidmar. Please take a moment to click here for more on this]. 

The school and its staff (especially Principal Vidmar) have been deluged with scores of nasty emails and phone calls including hostile comments such as "We hope you burn in hell". Another call was made to one of the teachers on 12/9/04 at 1:30 am saying "I know who you are, where you live and that you work for that godforsaken school." This kind of intimidation is making it very difficult for parents or teachers to speak out publicly against the nastiness and false claims behind the lawsuit. [I have therefore posted a special request on Dailykos asking people to take action, by including the text of a letter I wrote to the CUSD Superintendent and Board].

The reality here is that the teaching material of Mr. Williams is unbelievably slanted towards promoting God, religion and Christianity ("Christian nation" propaganda) while leaving out easily available, copious amounts of material that contradict the picture he was trying to provide the students. Some of his teaching supplements were even found to be bogus or dubious in origin [see some examples in Exhibit E and Exhibit G of the original lawsuit or Handout G of the amended lawsuit]. It shows a complete disregard for providing young students a well rounded perspective on what the founders of the United States really thought, not just about God or religion, but also about how God or religion should interact with the business of Government. It tells me that the principal may indeed have had good justification for doing what she did. [Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has linked to this must-read commentary in FindLaw by legal scholar Vikram David Amar in the context of the Stephen Williams Cupertino lawsuit. Also take a minute to read my companion article: Church-State Separation in the United States: Religion in Public Schools and the Legal/Off-Courtroom Strategies of the Christian Right]

Let me add a clarification in response to some emails I received. The objective of this page is not to claim that the Founding Fathers of the United States were irreligious or had no faith in Christianity (even though there are quotations presented here that gives the impression that some of them might have been that way). Indeed, if we set aside some of the prominent Founding Fathers, there is a fair amount of evidence that Americans from that era tended to more religious than not  - although they craved for freedom of religion, which was one of the reasons many of the migrants came to this country. However, in terms of the Founding Fathers themselves, the real issue we are dealing with in this incident is not whether they were devout Christians but whether they believed religion or church needed to be an integral part of the Government of the United States. The issue is also not whether John Adams or Abraham Lincoln or any of the others that Mr. Williams quoted were religious - it is whether they were blindly religious in the manner portrayed by Mr. Williams in his "supplements". 

[Note: The lawsuit has a fair number of documents. I have reviewed most of them and the details of that review were used to compile the summary (above). The review is available (below) starting here; to contact the media to ask them to provide the real facts on this story please go to section 6].

On another serious note, this episode demonstrates yet again why much of the media in this country is not liberal by any means, but is rather driven to report a "he-said she-said" perspective with little independent fact checking. The right-wing media, as usual, is openly dishonest and fraudulent (as I have summarized in Appendix A). Dave has chronicled this in this update (edited on 12/6/04 to include a correction in Dave's post):

The New York Times, in God, American History and a Fifth-Grade Class, writes today about the Thanksgiving-week "Declaration of Independence Banned" story. They cover the story in a he-said/she-said manner, saying the teacher's contrived lawsuit,

"...has single-handedly turned the Declaration of Independence into a powerful tool for the Christian right in its battle against secularist teaching of colonial history..."
The Times story does not even mention that the controversy -- the reason they are covering the story at all -- only exists because of the inflammatory claim that the Declaration of Independence was banned by the school because it contained the word 'God,' and does not refute this outright lie beyond one "he said" statement. The school had not banned the Declaration of Independence, it had asked a teacher to stop giving unconstitutional "supplemental handouts" (like this, perhaps?) to students.

The original story surfaced in the Right's echo chamber (Drudge, Limbaugh, Fox...) the day before Thanksgiving -- carefully timed to make it impossible to refute for several days, and to stir up emotions at family dinnertables. Now the story is widespread, which is probably the reason the Times addressed it at all. A Google search of "Declaration of Independence banned" yields 17,200 citations. (That is a search of the text in quotes, not for sites containing some mix of the words.)

The Alliance Defense Fund, the "Christian law" organization responsible for the lawsuit states on their website that they use "strategy and coordination" to advance their mission to "spread of the Gospel." In this case their agitprop strategy of bearing false witness to provoke argument and division has proven successful. This lie is being repeated by blogs, discussion forums and word-of-mouth "water cooler" conversations. And the intended culture-war response is evoked in the thinking of the public: they are "fed up" with "politically correct" "domestic enemies" who are taking the separation of church and state "too far."

Professional journalism again fails us. As far as I know, no "journalists" have seriously looked into the outrageous claim that a school banned the Declaration of Independence because it contains the word 'God', even though it is a major topic of discussion across the country, after Reuters allowed itself to be used to publicize and bring mainstream credibility to the lie.

Evidence backing up my summary is shown below - grouped in a few sections (some of the links to other commentary on the web are from Dave). Please peruse through the sections and then help the Principal and correct the false stories in the media by going to Section 6

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

1. A BIG LIE DISSECTED: HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY OF THE ISSUE, FROM DAVE JOHNSON

1.1 Alliance Defense Fund belatedly acknowledges that the claim that the "Declaration of Independence was banned..." from the school is false, but blames the media for this rather than taking ownership for their own false claim

2. WHAT ARE THE REAL FACTS ON THE ISSUE?

2.1 Was Stephen Williams discriminated against because he was a "Christian"?

2.2 Is/was Principal Vidmar against the mention of God in the classroom?

2.3 Is/Was Principal Vidmar against the mention of anything to do with Jesus Christ or Christianity in the classroom?

2.3.1 Is/Was Principal Vidmar hostile to discussions on religion or Christianity in general?

2.4 What can we say about the choice of "supplemental materials" that plaintiff Williams chose for his students? A lot. The material is incredibly slanted and in some cases dubious or bogus.

EXHIBITS FROM ORIGINAL ADF LAWSUIT

Exhibit A (page 17): National Day of Prayer, 2004 - By the President of the United States of America, A Proclamation

Exhibit B (page 20): Excerpts from FRAME OF GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA by William Penn (1682)

Exhibit C (page 22): Declaration of Independence

Exhibit D (page 24): Religious Clauses in State Constitutions

Exhibit E (page 27): What Great Leaders Have Said About the Bible

Exhibit F (page 29): The Rights of the Colonists by Samuel Adams

Exhibit G (page 32): George Washington's Prayer Journal

Exhibit H (page 36): John Adams' Diary

Exhibit I (page 39): The Principles of Natural Law, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui

Exhibit J (page 46): Fact Sheets: Currency and Coins - History of "In God We Trust"

Exhibit K (page 50): History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools


SOME ADDITIONAL HANDOUTS MENTIONED IN THE AMENDED LAWSUIT

Handout g (page 9): The Conversion of Quaker Isaac Potts to the Cause of Patriotism through the Observation of George Washingtons Prayer, from Rev. Nathanial Randolph Snowden, Diary and Remembrances

Handout h (page 9): “George Washington’s Adopted Daughter Discusses Washington’s Religious Character,” by Nelly Custis-Lewis


2.4.1 Steven Williams' Easter assignment to his students

2.5 Why Williams' "supplemental materials" are worth being concerned about

3. WHO IS BEHIND ADF (THE GROUP THAT HAS FILED THE LAWSUIT AGAINST CUSD)?

Alliance Defense Fund

- The late Bill Bright

- The late Marlin Maddoux

- James Dobson

- D. James Kennedy

- Don Wildmon

4. INTIMIDATION OF THE STEVENS CREEK SCHOOL

4.1 Intimidating phone calls to Stevens Creek School

4.2 Letters of intimidation sent to the Stevens Creek PTO

5. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE PARENTS AND TEACHERS OF STEVENS CREEK SCHOOL

6. HOW TO HELP PRINCIPAL PATRICIA VIDMAR (and contact the Press as well)


APPENDIX A: RIGHT-WING MEDIA'S DISTORTIONS, DISHONESTY AND PROPAGANDA

FOOTNOTE: An important clarification on my use of the term "right-wing", in response to an email from a staunchly conservative parent who is fighting on behalf of Principal Vidmar

UPDATES: Links to updates made on this page after 12/15/04


1. A BIG LIE DISSECTED: HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY OF THE ISSUE, FROM DAVE JOHNSON

Here's Dave:

"Declaration Of Independence Banned" - It's A Lie!

I don't have much time right now but I want to bring attention to this "news" story Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School:

A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God -- including the Declaration of Independence.

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.

Summary (inferred) - the teacher was forcing his students to listen to and read "Christian Nation" propaganda. The school asked him to stop. The teacher is suing the school with the help of a right-wing "Christian Law" organization, the Alliance Defense Fund. (Also see this.)

The school did not "ban the Declaration of Independence" -- that is just a lie. This story is like when you hear that a man was "arrested for praying" and you find out he was kneeling in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour and refused to move.

This is the BIG STORY today, on Rush, and Drudge, and the rest of the Usual Suspects. And it is a carefully planned and carefully timed lie.

The story is timed for this afternoon so that it cannot be refuted until Monday.

It is timed to cause fights and hatred at family Thanksgiving dinners across the country.

It is part of a strategy to reinforce a "conventional wisdom" notion that "liberals" are "going too far" with their demands of separation of church and state.

People For the American Way has a web page about the Alliance Defense Fund. From PFAW:

ADF's Founders:

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ

Larry Burkett, founder of Christian Financial Concepts

Rev. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family

Rev. D. James Kennedy, founder of Coral Ridge Ministries

Marlin Maddoux, President of International Christian Media

Don Wildmon, founder of American Family Association
(And 25+ other ministries)
President and General Counsel: Alan Sears
Date of founding: 1994
Finances: $15,411,093 (2001 budget)
And note this:
ADF defines itself by its ability to strategize and coordinate with lawyers all over the United States.
[. . .]
ADF also defends the right of Christians to 'share the gospel' in workplaces and public schools, claiming that any efforts to curb proselytizing at work and school are anti-Christian.

"Strategize and coordinate." Sounds like what's happening with this story, planted on Rush and Drudge, in time for the holiday. I hope that other bloggers can pick up on this. I suspect many of us are going to miss how important this is -- how big of an effect this is going to have on things we care about. This story is designed as ammunition for family conversations tomorrow.

As I write this, O'Reilly is on the air on FOX saying "Another ruling by an activist judge that puts us all in danger." That's an exact quote. It isn't about this story, but it reinforces it: Yet more "liberals' who are "going too far."

See the forest. See how this stuff works!

Update - I have a more few pre-holiday minutes to spend on this... To be clear about this story, the school said the teacher could not use handouts that included quotes from the Declaration and other documents. A San Mateo Times story (where I live) says,

"She then prevented Williams from giving students several handouts including:
- Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence with references to "God," "Creator," and "Supreme Judge."

And from the Alliance's press release,

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit yesterday against the Cupertino Union School District for prohibiting a teacher from providing supplemental handouts to students about American history because the historical documents contain some references to God and religion. [emphasis added]
Supplemental handouts, huh? I wonder where he got those from?

That's all this is. The rest is strategic disinformation -- agitprop.

And for the Right's spin on the story -- how's suing for saying "Merry Christmas?"

As late as 11/29/04, at Fox News, Hannity and Colmes are still grossly misleading their viewers by claiming that Williams was "Banned from Showing Students the Declaration of Independence". More here.


1.1 Alliance Defense Fund belatedly acknowledges that the claim that the "Declaration of Independence was banned..." from the school is false, but blames the media for this rather than taking ownership for their own false claim

On 2/2/05, one of the parents forwarded me two press releases.

The first one is from ADF, in response to the letter previously sent to ADF by We The Parents asking for an apology (h). I could not find this letter on ADF's website as of 2/4/04, but as the parent stated: "This is a press release they give only to news reporters who ask for a response to our open letter. They are too embarrassed to post it." A report in the Cupertino Courier confirms that ADF did issue this press release. Here is ADF's press release (the exact fonts/punctuation may be different from how it was in ADF's release since I am reproducing this from a forwarded email):

ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND STATEMENT
January 27, 2005 ˆ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020

ADF dispels misunderstandings about lawsuit against Cupertino Union School District

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.˜Some media reports have incorrectly characterized the lawsuit filed on behalf of teacher Stephen Williams against the Cupertino Union School District as challenging a complete ban by the school of the Declaration of Independence from the entire school. That characterization is wrong.

The text of our Nov. 23, 2004, news release on this lawsuit clearly stated that Mr. Williams was prohibited from using the Declaration in his classroom despite having sound academic reasons to do so. Additionally, the actual complaint is a public document and is (and has been) available at our Web site at
www.alliancedefensefund.org/userdocs/WilliamsvCupertinoComplaint.pdf.

What is at issue in this lawsuit is not the reputation or general quality of education at Stevens Creek Elementary School, where Mr. Williams teaches. It is the question of whether school officials violated the U.S. Constitution when they placed particular limitations upon Mr. Williams ~and only Mr. Williams~ pertaining to the teaching of his class. This is the question that led to informal efforts to resolve the problem and, when those failed, to court.

After the lawsuit was filed, extensive media coverage and a vigorous public debate developed on the issue. Unfortunately, some people expressed themselves in a hateful, angry manner toward the school and others involved in the controversy. ADF deplores such uncivilized behavior on all fronts: such crude behavior by any person does nothing to further reasoned discussion of the fundamental rights at issue.

We the Parents have responded, thusly:

Cupertino parents request that lawyers' group take further actions to correct mistakes

Cupertino, 2/2/02: We, The Parents, a group of parents at Stevens Creek Elementary issued a statement today regarding the ADF‚s response to their Open Letter of last week. The letter requested that the ADF issue a public apology and a retraction of their November 23 press release which falsely stated that the Declaration of Independence had been banned at their school.

The ADF, in a press release on 1/27/05, deny that the Declaration of Independence has been banned from Stevens Creek Elementary. Such a ban was widely reported following the ADF's November 23 press release headlined "Declaration of Independence banned from classroom", but the ADF now describe these reports as a mischaracterization of the truth. They also decry the behavior of those who "expressed themselves in a hateful, angry manner toward the school and others involved in the controversy," which the parent group believes was the direct result of the inflammatory headline of the November 23 statement.

"We truly feel this is a David vs. Goliath kind of a victory! The small mouse squeaked so loud the elephant had to move," said Jean Marie Danielson. "We welcome this first step from ADF to putting the record straight, but still look forward to receiving a public apology for the harm they have caused our school and our children," stated Richard Crouch. "What we have seen so far looks more like an effort to minimize their own legal liability."

ADF still claims in their latest press release that "Mr. Williams was prohibited from using the Declaration in his classroom despite having sound academic reasons to do so." John Bartas, co-founder of the group, responds "that claim sounds ridiculous when you know that the document is printed entirely in the text book used by all fifth grade students and teachers. The lawsuit states that Williams wanted to use was his own 'excerpts', not the complete and original Declaration."

Nathalie Schuler, media relations volunteer for the group, stated that the ADF has blamed the media for misrepresenting their claims and has not taken responsibility for its own actions. "We still see their original misleading and inflammatory press release on their website. Recently the school received another email with a clear call to action‚ asking Christians‚ to contact the school and convey their feelings, and to do more than just speak out. This e-mail reproduced the original ADF press release. We think this will continue to happen as long as they don't withdraw it and publicly apologize for misleading the public in the first place."

The group also questions the validity of the claim by the ADF that Williams was singled out by the principal because he is a Christian. "There are other fifth grade teachers at our school who are also Christian and they are not required to turn in lesson plans," explained Larry Woodard, a parent at the school and former supporter of the ADF. "Since the ADF mislead the public on the Declaration ban, what does that say about the credibility of the rest of their claims?" asked Woodard.

The group continues to request a public retraction and apology from the ADF. The full text of the Open Letter to the ADF can be found of the parents website, www.stevenscreekparents.org

Indeed, ADF continues to lie on their website. Even as of 2/5/05, the headline associated with their November news release still says: "Declaration of Independence Banned from Classroom".


2. WHAT ARE THE REAL FACTS ON THE ISSUE?

In response to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the teacher, The Cupertino Union School District has issued two press releases on its website so far - one dated 11/29/04 and another dated 11/30/04. The releases state that the school district will provide the court all the details supporting its viewpoint, and the 11/30 release also points out the following (bold text is eRiposte emphasis):

The Declaration of Independence, sections of the United States Constitution, and other historical documents are re-printed in our textbooks, displayed in some of our school buildings, and taught in our social studies curriculum and lessons. There has been no ban of such documents or their underlying principles in the Cupertino Union School District.

The Constitution requires the District to uphold the First Amendment which mandates the separation between Church and State. Courts have repeatedly held that public schools have the right and the duty to review instructional materials to ensure compliance with this constitutional obligation. The District’s conduct in this matter has been consistent with its obligations.

Principal Vidmar has been silent - but this is not unexpected considering that a lawsuit has been filed against her (and that she has been the subject of an intimidation campaign - more on this in Section 4 and Section 5). 

However, this leads to a bit of a problem. As usual, you have an accuser and his right-wing supporters making misleading claims (as late as 11/29/04, at Fox News, Hannity and Colmes are still grossly misleading their viewers by claiming that Williams was "Banned from Showing Students the Declaration of Independence" - more here) and filing a lawsuit, but the school district, wanting to (rightfully) deal with this in the court system has not released the details that provide a full perspective of what actually happened. 

So, where does that leave us? 

A. First, there is the parent (or possibly multiple parents - see below) who complained against teacher Steven Williams. There is no need for the parent(s) to be silent. Principal Vidmar acted on a specific complaint (or complaints) - so, regardless of who is at fault here, the details on the complaint(s) should be made available to counterbalance the so-called "facts" that the proponents of the lawsuit have provided to the Press.

One of my sources (in the school PTO), indicated to me that it is possible that multiple complaints were filed against this teacher (not just one). I am still trying to get one or more of the parents (not sure if more than one is involved) who filed the complaint to provide as much details on the complaint as possible (if you are one such parent, please send me as much information as you can - your anonymity will be preserved!

B. Second, as I show in Section 3, the group filing the lawsuit is a combination of far Right fundamentalists who specialize in filing (intimidating) frivolous lawsuits, especially the type involving church and state and gays. 

C. Third, in the absence of more detailed information from the school or the complaining parents, we can dissect the claims some more by reviewing the claims and the lawsuit.

2.1 Was Stephen Williams discriminated against because he was a "Christian"?

The original Reuters report which Dave captured says this (note that this report calls the teacher Steven, but another more recent article as of 12/8/04 says "Stephen"):

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.

As John McKay observed:

Notice the unqualified use of the word "Christian." I've talked about this before. This is how the right appropriates a word for their own use. It implies many things. By making it sound like he is the only Christian in the school, he claims the privileged position of a beleaguered minority. It also implies that only his variety of Christianity is the only authentic variety, the only one allowed to be simply "Christian." Authenticity is a powerful quality in the American value system.

John's observation is quite correct. The discrimination angle already makes no sense given Williams admits he has been allowed to teach without incident for many years previously. Moreover, are we led to believe that Williams is the only Christian teacher in the school - a school in a fairly affluent community (student ethnicity 42% White, 50% Asian - via Liz Ditz)? A reasonable guess would say that the answer is NO. So, I think we can say with fairly high confidence that this claim of discrimination because he is a Christian is nonsensical.

2.2 Is/Was Principal Vidmar against the mention of God in the classroom? 

Clearly not. Even the Plaintiffs state the following in page 6 of the ORIGINAL lawsuit:

39. Other teachers are permitted to show films and distribute handouts containing references to God.
...
56. Mr. Williams has distributed his chosen handouts during previous school years without any problems. 

So, clearly, there is NO CASE here that the Principal was somehow anti-God and forced teachers to stop talking about God. 

2.3 Is/Was Principal Vidmar against the mention of anything to do with Jesus Christ or Christianity in the classroom?

The answer again is NO (not just because other teachers in the school are allowed to sharing materials with a Christian religious background with their students). Indeed, the plaintiffs' claim is patently false on this matter (see below).

Indeed, as Julia at American Street has pointed out, this becomes apparent from the plaintiffs claims as well (bold text is my emphasis):

Mr. Williams also, presumably for Thanksgiving consumption, whips out the old chestnut about Christianity not being given equal status in a diverse society

Williams said he thinks society has become hypersensitive to any reference of Christianity in the public arena, especially schools. He said he has taught students about Ramadan and Kwanzaa and applauded for those lessons.

“People are like, “Oh good, that’s diversity,’ ‘’ he said. “As soon as Christianity involved, it’s separation of church and state.'’

Well, not quite that either. From the complaint:

In November 2003, Mr. Williams taught a lesson on the origins of Thanksgiving.

On December 2003 and January 2004, Mr. Williams taught lessons on the origins of religious holidays, including Christmas, Ramadan, Diwali, Hanukah and the Chinese New Year.

Principal Vidmar did not object to the lessons about Thanksgiving or the religious holidays.

In April 2004, Mr. Williams intended to teach a lesson about the religious holiday of Easter.

Principal Vidmar ordered Mr. Williams not to teach a lesson about Easter.

Principal Vidmar gave this order because Easter is a Christian religious holiday.

See, Christmas? Not a Christian religious holiday and he was allowed to teach it in a lesson talking about multicultural religious celebrations and their role in american life.

[AN ASIDE: Atrios has posted an interesting tidbit on Christmas from the History Channel that I found revealing:

An Outlaw Christmas
In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas. By popular demand, Charles II was restored to the throne and, with him, came the return of the popular holiday.

The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution. Christmas wasn't declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870...]

Coming back to Williams' and ADF's complaint it also mentions the following in page 6 of the ORIGINAL lawsuit:

56. Mr. Williams has distributed his chosen handouts during previous school years without any problems. 

So, Mr. Williams was not really "discriminated against" in the past - which means that Principal Vidmar cannot simply be against God or Christianity can she? Obviously something else precipitated the change in her position, didn't it? Rather than Ms. Vidmar supposedly being against a "Christian" like plaintiff Williams or "discriminating" against him.

What could it be? Well, at least one parent complained - as Mr. Williams has himself admitted. (Actually more than one parent complained - more on this below).

As Julia has noted:

Do principals have the right to ask teachers to submit materials not on the curriculum for approval? Yes. Do any other teachers in Mr. Williams’ school have to submit their materials? No. Is there a reason for this? Well, yeah.

Speaking from his home Wednesday, a school holiday, Williams said the problems started last year after he responded to a student who asked why the Pledge of Allegiance includes the phrase, “under God.'’

Eventually a parent complained and the principal started requesting his lesson plans and handouts.

“I’ve never even tried to hint the kids need to believe this or this is the right religion to believe,'’ said Williams, who has been teaching eight years. “I’m just trying to teach history.'’

I Speak of Dreams (Liz Ditz) links to a Mercury News article which notes that a National Prayer Day handout was one of the triggers of parent complaints against Mr. Williams:

...Noravian, whose son had Williams last year, said that the teacher wore a Jesus ring, a cross near the collar of his shirt and talked to his students often about his Bible study classes. Noravian said that when Williams sent his students home with a proclamation for national prayer day from President Bush, she and other parents complained to the principal.

"The class was studying George Washington at the time,'' Noravian said. ``It had nothing to do with George W. Bush or the proclamation of prayer.''...

Via, Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I see that Elaine Korry at NPR did a brief story on 12/12/04 (I had sent them an email before this day but looks like they didn't bother to read it since she mentioned "George Washington's Prayer Journal" without noting that GW never wrote it). Anyway, Ed notes the following about the NPR piece:

That story said that there were in fact multiple complaints to the principal by multiple parents. The story interviewed several parents who said that Mr. Williams talked about Jesus constantly, during math lessons or science lessons or, as one put it, "a hundred times a day". They also interviewed several other teachers from the school, according to the reporter, and not one of them took Williams' side in the dispute. It also pointed out that the 5th grade textbook that he uses in his 5th grade class contains a full copy of the Declaration of Independence, putting the lie to the ADF's claim that the Declaration was "banned in the classroom".

A story in the local city paper the Cupertino Courier says:

The controversy began in Williams' fifth grade classroom last year following discussions about the phrase "under God" used in the Pledge of Allegiance and discussions about the faith of Christopher Columbus. Thompson maintains that on both occasions student questions sparked the discussions. He believes, however, that it was students' parents who alerted the principal to the classroom discussions.

Subsequently, Williams was also allegedly prevented from discussing Easter as a religious holiday.

Finally, last May Vidmar reportedly asked to see all of Williams' lesson plans and handouts before he used them in class. She then, according to Williams' attorney, rejected lesson plans and handouts involving God and religion. Thompson said other teachers at the school did not have to follow this policy.

According to Thompson, among the censored handouts were the Declaration of Independence and excerpts from George Washington's diary.

"It's like being asked to teach architecture without being allowed to talk about cathedrals," said Thompson. "It's hard to teach American history when you expunge Christianity," he said. "After all, this country was not founded by the Boston Agnostics Club."

Well, well. Talking about the Pledge of Allegiance and the origin of "Under God", Julia has has a helpful reminder on this (bold text is my emphasis):

A brief history of the Pledge of Allegiance and the addition of the words “under God”

Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he is expressing the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).

Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all. The government would run a peace time economy similar to our present military industrial complex.

The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth’s Companion, the leading family magazine and the Reader’s Digest of its day. Its owner and editor, Daniel Ford, had hired Francis in 1891 as his assistant when Francis was pressured into leaving his baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons. As a member of his congregation, Ford had enjoyed Francis’s sermons. Ford later founded the liberal and often controversial Ford Hall Forum, located in downtown Boston.

In 1892 Francis Bellamy was also a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools’ quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his ‘Pledge of Allegiance.’

His original Pledge read as follows: ‘I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ He considered placing the word, ‘equality,’ in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans. [’to’ added in October, 1892.]

Dr. Mortimer Adler, American philosopher and last living founder of the Great Books program at Saint John’s College, has analyzed these ideas in his book, The Six Great Ideas. He argues that the three great ideas of the American political tradition are ‘equality, liberty and justice for all.’ ‘Justice’ mediates between the often conflicting goals of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality.’

In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the ‘leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge’s words, ‘my Flag,’ to ‘the Flag of the United States of America.’ Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, ‘under God,’ to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.

Bellamy’s granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.

What follows is Bellamy’s own account of some of the thoughts that went through his mind in August, 1892, as he picked the words of his Pledge:

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards with the makings of the Constitution…with the meaning of the Civil War with the aspiration of the people…

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the ‘republic for which it stands.’ …And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?

Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity.’ No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all…

OK, who guesses Mr. Williams gave his class a rousing talk on utopian socialism and the history of racial and gender discrimination in the religious establishment of the US during the turn of the last century? Bueller? Anybody?

Jim Allison and Susan Batte have an excellent site, and one of the topics they cover in depth is the Pledge of Allegiance - check it out.

2.3.1 Is/Was Principal Vidmar hostile to discussions on religion or Christianity in general?

One of the conservative parents at the school sent me an email with this notable summary:

Allow me to run at the mouth (fingers?) a bit: On a national scale, political correctness is taking too much of our national history and underlying context out of the school curriculum, and I object to that. Compounding this, for fear of offending someone, religion fails to receive the academic coverage a balanced education requires. 

To single out Stevens Creek Elementary as being part of this problem is, to be charitable, silly. If anything, we should be hailed as a perfect example of HOW to do it. Founding documents, all of them, are taught in correct historic and religious context, we teach about all religions, Christianity included (which is not done in too many schools), sing patriotic songs like God Bless America, sing Christmas carols and other religious holiday songs. We even have a Bible study and prayer group that meets on school grounds, with the endorsement and full support of our fine principal, Patti Vidmar.

I think that about says it all, doesn't it?

Well, yes, but there's a lot more to say about this horrible, frivolous lawsuit. Not knowing the nature of the parent's complaint, there is a lot we can tell about Mr. William's intent by perusing through the many exhibits in the ORIGINAL lawsuit (starting at page 17)  - each exhibit being one of the "supplemental" materials that plaintiff Williams distributed or wanted to distribute to his students. So let us take a look, shall we?

2.4 What can we say about the choice of "supplemental materials" that plaintiff Williams chose for his students? A lot. The material is incredibly slanted and in some cases dubious or bogus.

To review this let us quickly peruse through the many exhibits in the ORIGINAL lawsuit.

Exhibit A (page 17): National Day of Prayer, 2004 - By the President of the United States of America, A Proclamation

This sheet (and its accompanying ""History of the National Day of Prayer" in page 19) is a strong statement claiming to acknowledge the "sovereignty of God". Among other things, on page 19, a statement is made that:

The National Day of Prayer has great significance for us as a nation. It enables us to recall the way in which our founding fathers sought the wisdom of God when faced with critical decisions.

This is very clearly an attempt to tell students that the President and the founders of the country strongly believed in God and relied on "God's" wisdom to make critical decisions. As I have shown later on this page, this is at best misleading and at worst false theocratic propaganda since it conveniently omits statements from the founding fathers warning against letting matters of God and religion interfere into the affairs of the state and statements renouncing the notion of God or religion.

I Speak of Dreams (Liz Ditz) links to a Mercury News article which notes that this handout was one of the triggers of parent complaints against Mr. Williams:

...Noravian, whose son had Williams last year, said that the teacher wore a Jesus ring, a cross near the collar of his shirt and talked to his students often about his Bible study classes. Noravian said that when Williams sent his students home with a proclamation for national prayer day from President Bush, she and other parents complained to the principal.

"The class was studying George Washington at the time,'' Noravian said. ``It had nothing to do with George W. Bush or the proclamation of prayer.''...

Exhibit B (page 20): Excerpts from FRAME OF GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA by William Penn (1682)

As with Exhibit A, this sheet makes strong statements about God - such as God being the creator of the world and there being a "divine right of government beyond exception". Conveniently though, this leaves out material that provides better context for William Penn's true beliefs - which are represented in the Quaker Religion that he subscribed to (after being introduced to it in 1661).

As this essay points out (bold text is my emphasis):

The Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends was religious group that founded Pennsylvania. William Penn, one of the leaders, worked with the Quakers, Indians and the other population to make an ideal world for him, his followers, and the other people in his environment. With his efforts, and the help of others, the Quakers left a huge impact on Pennsylvania and the entire nation.

The Quakers are a religion that originated in England in protest of the Anglican Church's practices. The man in charge of this religious revolution was George Fox.1 He believed that God didn't live in churches as much as he lived in people's hearts.2 In that state of mind, he went out into the world in search of his true religion. He argued with priests, slept in fields, and spent days and nights trying to find followers. His first followers were mostly young people and women. Besides freedom of religion, they wanted freedom of speech, worship and assembly, refusal to go to war or take oath, and equality of the sexes and social classes.3 In England, between the years of 1650 and 1700, more than 15,000 Quakers were fined and/or imprisoned; 366 were killed.4 The reason why the Quakers were put through such torture was because their beliefs and culture was different from the Anglican Church. At that time, any religion that was practiced in England other than the Anglican Church would be persecuted. They believed that religion shouldn't be practiced in a church as much as in your heart.
[next section separated for clarity]

The differences that were between the Quakers and the Anglican Christians was that the Anglicans practiced strict discipline in their prayers. They would go to prayer every morning, and ask for forgiveness of their sins. They believed that the sacred authority was the Bible, the only way to make your way to heaven was to go to sermon; they should glorify God in the world; and pay no attention to the irrationality of God. They didn't believe men could achieve anything for themselves; only God could do that. The Quakers, on the other hand, believed that God should be in your spirit, not in sermon, and that your sacred authority shouldn't be a book, it should be your inner light, the force that drives you through you life. They believed you shouldn't be servants of God, but to be friends of God. They believed violence was an unnecessary part of life, and things could be worked out in other ways.5 The Quakers thought the authority of God was absolute, but didn't need to be preached at a formal meeting as much as the Anglican Church believed that should happen. [next section separated for clarity]

In 1661, William Penn was introduced to Quakerism. He had been studying at Christ Church in Oxford. He started to notice that he didn't believe in some of the things that he was studying in his religion. So, he started to go to Quaker meetings, and believe in that religion instead.6 In England, he was expelled from Oxford in 1662 for refusing to conform to the Anglican Church, so he moved on to Pennsylvania in the "New World." In this new colony that he established, he set up a freedom of worship. It became a retreat for many religious groups coming from Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, and Great Britain.7 He decided to go to the New World, but first he made a trip with Quaker leader George Fox. When they got there, the construction from the plans of Penn's was already in progress. 8 In 1682, Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn. He came upon his own personal ship, Welcome, along with William Bradford, Nicholas Waln, and Thomas Wynne and other less known men.9 Now they had many established colonies in Pennsylvania and a strong belief system with which build a state. One of the things William Penn is known well for is his attitude toward the Native Americans. He created a friendly environment with his colonies and the Native Americans. He believed that treating the Native Americans fairly, not harshly, would prevent any tension between the two groups, which could cause wars otherwise. He knew that they were different than himself and his followers, but they should be given much respect for they were in the New World centuries before England even knew about it. He included them in jury and everyday actions. He considered them to be equal to him.10

The following summary on the Quaker website may be referred to, instead, if one has a problem with spelling-challenged essays [this link was added on 1/3/05 in response to this letter/post by Brian Carnell]:

William Penn, America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace
by Jim Powell

Mr. Powell is editor of Laissez-Faire Books and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. Copyright © by Jim Powell. Reprinted on www.quaker.org by permission.

William Penn was the first great hero of American liberty. During the late seventeenth century, when Protestants persecuted Catholics, Catholics persecuted Protestants, and both persecuted Quakers and Jews, Penn established an American sanctuary which protected freedom of conscience. Almost everywhere else, colonists stole land from the Indians, but Penn traveled unarmed among the Indians and negotiated peaceful purchases. He insisted that women deserved equal rights with men. He gave Pennsylvania a written constitution which limited the power of government, provided a humane penal code, and guaranteed many fundamental liberties.

For the first time in modem history, a large society offered equal rights to people of different races and religions. Penn's dramatic example caused quite a stir in Europe. The French philosopher Voltaire, a champion of religious toleration, offered lavish praise. "William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age, which in all probability, never had any real existence but in his dominions. "

Penn was the only person who made major contributions to liberty in both the New World and the Old World. Before he conceived the idea of Pennsylvania, he became the leading defender of religious toleration in England. He was imprisoned six times for speaking out courageously. While in prison, he wrote one pamphlet after another, which gave Quakers a literature and attacked intolerance. He alone proved capable of challenging oppressive government policies in court--one of his cases helped secure the right to trial by jury. Penn used his diplomatic skills and family connections to get large numbers of Quakers out of jail. He saved many from the gallows.

Despite the remarkable clarity of Penn's vision for liberty, he had a curious blind spot about slavery. He owned some slaves in America, as did many other Quakers. Antislavery didn't become a widely shared Quaker position until 1758, 40 years after Penn's death. Quakers were far ahead of most other Americans, but it's surprising that people with their humanitarian views could have contemplated owning slaves at all.

There were just two portraits of Penn painted during his lifetime, one depicting him as a handsome youth, the other as a stout old man. A biographer described young Penn's "oval face of almost girlish prettiness but with strong features, the brusqueness of the straight, short nose in counterpoint to the almost sensuous mouth. What gives the face its dominant character are the eyes, burning with a dark, luminous insistence ... it is known from verbal descriptions that Penn was fairly tall and athletic. Altogether, the young man must have been both handsome and impressive."

William Penn was born on October 14, 1644, in London. The most specific description of his mother, Margaret, came from a neighbor, the acid-tongued diarist Samuel Pepys who described her as "well-looked, fat, short old Dutch woman, but one who hath been heretofore pretty handsome." She did the child-rearing, since her husband, William Penn Sr., was seldom at home. He was a much sought-after naval commander because he knew the waters around England, could handle a ship in bad weather and get the most from his crew. Admiral Penn had a good personal relationship with Stuart kings and for a while served their most famous adversary, the Puritan Oliver Cromwell.

Left mostly to himself, young William became interested in religion. He was thrilled to hear a talk by Thomas Loe, a missionary for the Society of Friends derisively known as Quakers. Founded in 1647 by the English preacher George Fox, Quakers were a mystical Protestant sect emphasizing a direct relationship with God. An individual's conscience, not the Bible, was the ultimate authority on morals. Quakers didn't have a clergy or churches. Rather, they held meetings where participants meditated silently and spoke up when the Spirit moved them. They favored plain dress and a simple life rather than aristocratic affectation.

After acquiring a sturdy education in Greek and Roman classics, Penn emerged as a rebel when he entered Oxford University. He defied Anglican officials by visiting John Owen, a professor dismissed for advocating tolerant humanism. Penn further rebelled by protesting compulsory chapel attendance, for which he was expelled at age 17.

His parents sent him to France where he would be less likely to cause further embarrassment, and he might acquire some manners. He enrolled at l'Académie Protestante, the most respected French Protestant university, located in Saumur. He studied with Christian humanist Moïse Amyraut, who supported religious toleration.

Back in England by August 1664, Penn soon studied at Lincoln's Inn, the most prestigious law school in London. He learned the common law basis for civil liberties and gained some experience with courtroom strategy. He was going to need it.

Admiral Penn, assigned to rebuilding the British Navy for war with the Dutch, asked that his son serve as personal assistant. Young William must have gained a valuable inside view of high command. Admiral Penn also used his son as a courier delivering military messages to King Charles II. Young William developed a cordial relationship with the King and his brother, the Duke of York, the future King James II.

Penn's quest for spiritual peace led him to attend Quaker meetings even though the government considered this a crime. In September 1667, police broke into a meeting and arrested everyone. Since Penn looked like a fashionable aristocrat rather than a plain Quaker, the police released him. He protested that he was indeed a Quaker and should be treated the same as the others. Penn drew on his legal training to prepare a defense. Meanwhile, in jail he began writing about freedom of conscience. His father disowned him, and young Penn lived in a succession of Quaker households. He learned that the movement was started by passionate preachers who had little education. There was hardly any Quaker literature. He resolved to help by applying his scholarly knowledge and legal training. He began writing pamphlets, which were distributed through the Quaker underground.

In 1668, one of his hosts was Isaac Penington, a wealthy man in Buckinghamshire. Penn met his stepdaughter Gulielma Springett, and it was practically love at first sight. Poet John Milton's literary secretary Thomas Ellwood noted her "innocently open, free and familiar Conversation, springing from the abundant Affability, Courtesy and Sweetness of her natural Temper." Penn married Gulielma on April 4, 1672. She was to bear seven children, four of whom died in infancy.

Meanwhile, Penn attacked the Catholic/ Anglican doctrine of the Trinity, and the Anglican bishop had him imprisoned in the notorious Tower of London. Ordered to recant, Penn declared from his cold isolation cell: "My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man." By the time he was released seven months later, he had written pamphlets defining the principal elements of Quakerism. His best-known work from this period: No Cross, No Crown, which presented a pioneering historical case for religious toleration...

The website of the Quakers also says this (bold text is my emphasis):

This is a religious group which came to America from England in the mid 1600's. They are referred to as Quakers because they believe that divine revelation does not come from an ordained ministry or the Church, but comes from "the Christian within." This inner divinity, also called the "inner light" was often accompanied by trembling, or quaking. They refer to themselves as the Society of Friends, and their congregation is called a meeting. Quakers became so prevalent in the late 1600s that a Yearly Meeting, a confederation of regional meetings, was established. They had hoped to find religious freedom in the colonies, but were ostracized by Puritan settlers. They left Plymouth and settled in the New Bedford area, which was called Dartmouth at the time.

Quakers were known for their very simple, plain attire and their outspoken rejection of slavery. They had a strong dedication to hard work and social advancement of the less fortunate. New Bedford Quakers included the very wealthy Benjamin Rotch, Samuel Rodman, William Rotch, Sr., and Andrew Robeson. Although each of these men had the means to produce opulent mansions, each opted instead for the very simple, although large, unadorned building as his home or place of business. The lifestyle of the Society of Friends translated into the unassuming, federal style of architecture.

Exhibit C (page 22): Declaration of Independence

What is notable here is that it is NOT the entire Declaration of Independence that is shown (or ostensibly distributed). What is shown are the first and last paragraph and a portion of the second paragraph - with mentions of "Nature's God", "Creator", "Supreme Judge of the world" and "Divine Providence". No context is provided for these extracts. 

For example, Robin Morgan has commented that:

The words “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “divine Providence ” do appear in the Declaration. But in its context — an era, and author, Thomas Jefferson, that celebrated science and the Enlightenment — these words are analogous to our contemporary phrase “life force.”
...
But the Founders were, after all, revolutionaries. Their passion — especially regarding secularism — glows in the documents they forged and in their personal words.

THOMAS PAINE

Paine’s writings heavily influenced the other Founders. A freethinker who opposed all organized religion, he reserved particular vituperation for Christianity. “My country is the world and my religion is to do good” (The Rights of Man, 1791).

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church” (The Age of Reason, 1794).

I cover this topic in more detail under Exhibit E, but the "revolutionaries" context that Morgan points out is crucial. The founders were people who were rebelling against the Anglican king and church - and were trying to bolster their case by invoking a higher power. This did not mean that they were beholden to this higher power in dictating the matters of Government or to a particular religion. Everyone has a right to believe in (their) God (or not believe) and the founders were sufficiently forward thinking to enshrine freedom of religion in the Constitution. But they were equally forward thinking in separating the affairs of church and state after seeing how many of their friends or acquaintances or fellow citizens were persecuted by charlatans misusing God or religion as their protective shield.

More on the Declaration of Independence here:

Something to keep in mind:

In an interview on the History Channel, on the evening of July 3, 1999, Dr. Stephen Lucas professor of communication arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison, who had spent the previous 15 years studying the origins of the Declaration of Independence made the following points:

(1). The men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence would be totally amazed by all the things people have since invented about what it was about, what it meant etc..

(2). That all these religious connections and meanings etc that have been added by others later was never implied as written or as understood at the time by it authors, that they were not part of what was originally important, the original understandings, meanings, intentions. etc.

(3).One of the points made over and over again was that the purpose of the Declaration of Independence was to justify/explain the separation of the colonies from England to other European countries and elicit support from them.

(4). It also points out that much of Jefferson's writings (Declaration of Independence writings) were borrowed from himself (his proposed constitution for Virginia) The Va Declaration of Rights, and other sources. That such practices were quite common practice at that time period.

The Declaration was not meant to give a religious foundation to this nation, to its founding, its founding documents, its legal system or laws. It was not intended to give a theological discourse on the creation of mankind.

The very things that people remember, focus on and quote today, those 16 or so words would have been the least important words of the document to those who wrote it, debated it, passed it and signed it. It is like we reversed things. The least important words are now the most important and the most imporant words at that time are all but forgotten, surely not argued about, debated, quoted, etc.
...
The American Historical Review Vol. 104 # 3 June 1999.

Allen Jayne. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 1998. Pp. xiii, 245. $39.95.

This book is a clear, concise, and accurate account of the philosophical and religious views that inspired Thomas Jefferson to compose the United States' formative document. Allen Jayne leaves no doubt that the "Nature's God" found in the Declaration of Independence, the deity who provides the American colonists with their right to rebel against the British government, is the rationalist God of deism, not the personal God of Abraham.

More here.

Exhibit D (page 24): Religious Clauses in State Constitutions

These are clauses picked from various state constitutions from the period of 1776 to 1796, highlighting various things - most of which skew towards the requirement of believing in God or being of the Protestant religion to hold office. There is one clause in some cases which forbids clergymen from running for office (not being an expert on this I am not sure if this reflected in some way on the desire to keep the church out of the state) but reading the extracts make it clear that this is coexistent with a requirement of belief in God and being a Protestant (to run for office) in many cases. Countervailing evidence on the framers' beliefs and intentions is not presented. 

Put another way, just because some states had religion or Christianity entrenched in their laws or Constitutions did not mean that that was legal per the U.S. Constitution or that the founders of the United States agreed with it. These states simply got away with it for decades before religious minorities fought to have such laws revoked or annulled. Indeed, there were states which specifically emphasized religious freedom or separation of church and state.

John Witte Jr. has a very interesting review on this very topic at the First Amendment Center, and I reproduce some extracts here:

Thomas Jefferson once called America’s new constitutional protections of religious freedom a “bold” and “novel experiment.” These new state and federal guarantees, Jefferson declared, defied the millennium-old assumptions inherited from Western Europe — that one form of Christianity must be established in a community, and that the state must protect and support it against other religions. America would no longer suffer such prescriptions and proscriptions of religion by government. All forms of Christianity had to stand on their own feet and on an equal footing with all other faiths. Their survival and growth had to turn on the cogency of their word, not the coercion of the sword; on the faith of their members, not the force of the law.

That bold constitutional experiment in granting religious freedom to all remains in place, and in progress, in the United States. Before 1940, principal governance of the experiment lay with the states. The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, applied by its terms only to the federal government — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … .” The first application of the free-exercise clause came in Reynolds v. United States (1879), a Mormon challenge to federal laws against polygamy. The first application of the establishment clause came in Bradfield v. Roberts (1899), a taxpayer challenge to congressional funding of a Catholic hospital. In both these cases and in the 10 federal cases on religion to follow before 1940 — challenging federal immigration, education and military laws — the Supreme Court found no First Amendment violation. It held for Congress in each instance, offering mostly superficial readings of the First Amendment.

State constitutions

Before 1940, most legal issues respecting religion were left to the states to resolve, each in accordance with its own state constitution. By 1833, every state constitution guaranteed its citizens basic liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, and freedom of religious worship and association. Every state also removed the most glaring vestiges of early religious establishments, notably the mandatory payment of tithes and compulsory participation in religious services. Most states accommodated citizens with religious scruples against serving in the military or swearing religious oaths. Most states also granted peaceable religious communities the right to have corporate charters and properties and to maintain their own religious schools, marriage ceremonies, charities, hospitals and cemeteries.

These basic guarantees of private religious freedom, however, did not prevent the states from patronizing a general form of public religion, and ostracizing those private parties who objected. Before 1940, only one state constitution — ironically, the Constitution of Utah (1896) — had a provision mandating “no union of Church and State.” For much of the 19th century, state officials routinely acknowledged and supported common (usually Christian) beliefs and practices. “In God We Trust” and similar confessions appeared on currency, stamps, state seals and government stationery. The Ten Commandments and other Bible verses were inscribed on the walls of many courthouses, public schools and other public buildings. Crucifixes and other Christian symbols were erected in some state parks and on statehouse grounds. Flags flew at half staff on Good Friday. Easter, Christmas and other Christian holy days were state holidays. Sundays were official days of rest. Government-sponsored chaplains were appointed to state legislatures, asylums, prisons, and hospitals. Prayers were offered in Congress and in state legislatures. Thanksgiving Day prayers and proclamations were made by presidents, governors and mayors alike.

Government officials afforded various forms of aid to religious groups. State and federal subsidies were given to Christian missionaries, charities and schools on the American frontier. Tax exemptions were accorded to Christian churches, clerics and charities. Special criminal laws protected church properties from violation; special procedural laws protected church officials from discovery and testimony. Tax revenues supported the acquisition of religious art for state museums, the purchase of religious texts for public state schools, and the construction and maintenance of private religious schools.

Government officials predicated some of their laws and policies directly on Christian teachings. Many of the first state schools and universities had mandatory courses in religion and compulsory attendance at daily chapel and Sunday worship. State prisons, reformatories, orphanages and asylums taught basic Christian beliefs and values. Polygamy, prostitution, pornography and other sexual offenses against Christian morals were prohibited. State marriage and divorce laws generally followed Christian commonplaces. Blasphemy was still occasionally prosecuted. It was a commonplace of 19th-century American legal thought, made famous by Justice Joseph Story, that “Christianity is a part of the common law.”

This pattern of granting freedom to all private religions while patronizing a common Christian religion worked well enough for the religiously homogeneous times and towns of the early republic — particularly when the frontier provided a place for religious minorities to