I first learned of this due to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, where the story received the dubious honor of being in the segment "good guys and goofballs."
According to the story, a community college teacher from Southwestern Community College in Red Oak, Iowa was fired for deviating from fundamentalist Christian orthodoxy by stating the account given in Genesis should not be taken literally. Evidentially some distance students in Osceola, Iowa objected to anyone speaking contrary to the literal interpretation and the administration caved to a minority position of Christians, which holds the book more sacred than God.
The obligatory Google News search discovered this sole account
US teacher fired for non-literal bible reading The Register
quote:
A teacher at a US community college in Red Oak, Iowa says he was fired after telling his students not to interpret the story of Adam and Eve as a literal account of events circa BC 4000.
According to the Des Moines Register, Bitterman said: "I'm just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master's degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job."
More:
quote:
After the class, he said he had a conversation with a student in which he referred to the story of Adam and Eve as a fairy tale. Then he was told that the students had threatened to take legal advice.
As a community college librarian in the US, I consider this a clear and blatant violation of the principle of separation of church and state, and hope the aggrieved teacher turns the tables and sues the crap out of this publically funded institution.
News? or is it yet another debate on separation of Church and State, a first amendment which has never been accepted by some so-called Christian patriots?
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis Bacon
The more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza