Judge: Teacher shouldn't have called creationism 'superstitious'

Chad Farnan was offended by both the words and the expression of his teachers classroom behavior. The judge ruled in his favor, narrowly.

Chad Farnan and his parents brought a lawsuit against James Corbett, a high school teacher at Capistrano Valley High School. Of 20 statements made which were both negative in nature and felt to be hostile to Christianity, only one was held to violate the constitutional guarantee of separation between church and state. That statement was in the context of calling creationism "superstitious nonsense". Other statements such as

"when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."

"When you pray for divine intervention, you're hoping that the spaghetti monster will help you get what you want."

"Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies — that's interfering with God's work"

a quote from Judge Selna:

"The court's ruling today reflects the constitutionally permissible need for expansive discussion even if a given topic may be offensive to a particular religion," the judge wrote.

While the teacher was found guilty of violating the students rights, the student Chad Farnan was not seeking monetary damages in the case. Instead, he was seeking more oversight of the obvious antipathy toward religion exhibited by his former teacher. The Capistrano Unified School District was not found liable in the case, but did pay for Corbett's defense.