The New York Times has an update on Ohio teacher John Freshwater, the public school teacher who doesn’t even try to keep his Christian beliefs to himself, opting instead to hinder their education with it:
Mr. Freshwater, an eighth-grade public school science teacher, is accused of burning a cross onto the arms of at least two students and teaching creationism, charges he says have been fabricated because he refused an order by his principal to remove a Bible from his desk.
…
To some, Mr. Freshwater is a hero unfairly punished for standing up for his Christian beliefs. To others, he is a zealot who pushed those beliefs onto students.
But no one is denying that he shares his Christian beliefs with students, telling them the science they learn is incorrect and they should look to the Bible for “real” information.
“Science is wrong,” Mr. Freshwater was reported as saying, “because the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin, and so anyone who is gay chooses to be gay and is therefore a sinner.”
A third teacher testified that Mr. Freshwater advised students to refer to the Bible for additional science research.
That should not be happening in a public school. You should have to pay good money at a private school to get corrupted at that level.
This man has no business being in a classroom. He’s just wasting taxpayer money by keeping this issue going when he ought to know that he crossed a line many times over.
Thankfully, a few Christians are well aware of this:
The family of Zachary Dennis, one of the two students who say they were branded by Mr. Freshwater, said they were eager for the matter to be closed. “We are religious people,” Jennifer Dennis, Zachary’s mother, said in an interview. “But we were offended when Mr. Freshwater burned a cross onto the arm of our child.”
After teachers and students criticized Zachary for speaking up, she said, the family sold its house and moved.
“We are Christians,” she said, “who practice our faith where it belongs, at church and in our home and, most importantly, outside the public classroom, where the law requires a separation of church and state.”
Let’s hope the jury has enough sense to keep this man away from children who deserve a proper education.
