By now I’m sure you’ve all heard from Dave and Digby that a teacher in California is suing because he was told not to use materials “including the Declaration of Independence” which mention God in his classroom.

Steven Williams, the plaintiff, is suing with the assistance of the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization founded by these ladies and gentlemen

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)

to promote, among other things, this principle

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.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday, but the stories (which, I’m assuming, rapidly followed the press release from ADF) started appearing just in time for Thanksgiving.

Let’s see what’s actually involved here, shall we? Granted we only have what the plaintiffs have provided, since they released the material during a school holiday, ensuring that the defendants will not be able to respond until Monday. Still, we have some information. Let’s see.

What exactly is it that Mr. Williams has been asked not to teach in his classroom?

The lawsuit alleges the school’s principal Patricia Vidmar required Williams to submit his lesson plans and the supplemental handouts he planned to use in his classroom for review.

She then prevented Williams from giving students several handouts including:

- Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence with references to “God,'’ “Creator,'’ and “Supreme Judge.'’

- “George Washington’s Prayer Journal.'’

- “The Rights of the Colonists,'’ by Samuel Adams, which includes passages excluding Roman Catholics from religious tolerance because of their “doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live.'’

- George W. Bush’s presidential 2004 Day of Prayer proclamation, with a supplemental handout on the history of the National Day of Prayer.

- Several excerpts from John Adam’s diary, including the July 26, 1796 passage, “Cloudy … The Christian religion is above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the black guard Paine say what he will it is resignation to God, it is goodness itself to man.'’

Granted, this is not a complete list. The complaint itself does not provide a complete list, although materials such as A handout entitled “Fact Sheet: Currency and Coins: History of ‘In God We Trust‘” (which deals with events which took place during the civil war and has precisely jack to do with the founders) and Excerpts from “The Principles of Natural Law” by Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (an attempt to demonstrate that all laws are based on God’s law written by a swiss jurist who died in 1748 and whose works on the religious basis of man’s law are popularly credited by fundamentalists fighting the separation of church and state with being a great influence on the founders because various founders are known to have read them. Certainly more influential than that blackguard Paine, whoever he was.) were left out of the Reuters and MSGOP stories, for lack of room, no doubt.

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.'’

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, indivis