Re: Judge Jones sided with the Discovery Institute and ruled against the Dove...

Let me further the support for my thesis by observing that in Edwards v.
Aguillard the court found that

    "The majority in /Edwards /found the statute in violation of the
    Establishment Clause, but under /Lemon’s/ first prong of a primary
    secular purpose it did not hold that creation is inherently
    religious. It expressly stated that teachers may present other
    scientific theories besides evolution: “[T]eaching a variety of
    scientific theories about the origins of humankind to schoolchildren
    might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the
    effectiveness of science instruction.”"

    and

    "If the Louisiana Legislature's purpose was solely to maximize the
    comprehensiveness and effectiveness of science instruction, it would
    have encouraged the teaching of all scientific theories about the
    origins of humankind. (/Edwards/ at 588)."

As one commentator thus argues

    "The Court here thus allows the teaching of theories other than the
    theory of evolution, as long as they are scientific, and they are
    being taught with the clear secular purpose of enhancing science
    education."

And yet that is exactly what the Board argued and which was rejected by
showing the lack of a valid secular purpose.

So under Edwards, whether ID is science may make the primary secular
purpose a valid and sincere one and not just a sham.

Or as one commentator observes

    "The United States Supreme Court in /Edwards/ did not hold that the
    teaching of creation is religious in contravention to the
    Establishment Clause. The Court only ruled that a law, such as the
    Louisiana Act, must have a demonstrably, though not exclusively,
    secular purpose, and consequently a primary effect which neither
    advances nor inhibits religion. For legislators or teachers who are
    truly /not/ seeking to get the “Bible back into school,” but simply
    want fair representation of all competing scientific theories to be
    presented to students, intelligent design offers a real possibility
    to achieve that goal."

In other words, the scientific status of ID once again seems essential
given the case law in this area.

The Discovery Institute, who argued in its Amicus that the Judge should
not rule on ID being science, despite also arguing that this provided
for a valid secular purpose suggests that all the judge had to do was

    "Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment
    Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have
    been the end to the case," said West. "Instead, Judge Jones got on
    his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and
    evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as
    the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design.
    This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur.""

If that were an acceptable standard then a judge would have to reject
the requirement for teaching evolution if it acted from religious or
anti religious motives.
One of the issues of contention between the plaintiffs and the
defendants was the issue of ID being science and thus having a valid
secular purpose.

Let's further assume that the court had found that ID is a valid
scientific theory, would it thus have found for a violation of the
establishment clause just because the subjective motives of the board
members, in face of a stated secular purpose which is neither a sham nor
insincere? And if the judge would have ruled the same irregardless of
the nature of ID as a science, how would such a judge have to rule if ID
were replaced by evolution?
Received on Mon Jan 9 23:43:29 2006