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Parents Suing School over Intelligent Design

A rural California high school is being sued for teaching a religion-based alternative to evolution by a group of parents who maintain the class violates the U.S. constitution. According to the federal lawsuit filed by parents of 13 students, Frazier Mountain High in Lebec violated the separation of church and state while attempting to legitimize the theory of "intelligent design" by introducing it as a philosophy class. The suit notes that the teacher of the class, "Philosophy of Design," is also a minister`s wife with no scientific training.

The suit was filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The group successfully blocked schools last month in Dover, Pennsylvania, from using science courses to advance the theory that living things are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher being. Similar battles are being fought in Georgia and Kansas.

Most advocates of Intelligent Design say that in order to promote a debate the theory should be taught alongside that of Darwinian theories of the evolution of man and other animals. Those who object to it say it is not a science, but a philosophy, and should be taught as such. Even so, the case in California demonstrates that even as a philosophy being taught in school, a philosophy with religious overtones, Intelligent Design sparks worries about Constitutional breaches by schools.