Freshwater hearing adds another day « Taking it to the Streets

Freshwater hearing adds another day

MOUNT VERNON — Tuesday marked the 37th day of testimony in the contract termination hearing of suspended Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher John Freshwater, but, despite statements made last week, it was not the last. The hearing will resume at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, June 22.

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my2centsworth

I agree with others, that Mr. Freshwater finally got fired & it was well deserved! And I’m beginning to wonder just exactly who you really are “Mabel Weller”…..or is it “John Freshwater” hiding behind a computer?
Why all the deep arguments about religion, & trying to force people to see your point as the only right way?

This isnt about religion. The nut DID NOT follow school policy, & he tried to overstep boundaries,,thinking they wouldnt fire him because he had been teaching for 20 yrs.

At any job anywhere there are rules & policies to be followed or be subject to letting go. He fought the rules of the job, & was fired. GOOD! He got what he deserved.

And Mabel… hate to tell you girly……. but you already ARE like your dad. Very headstrong, & you want your way.
Probably, you would be fired too. (Or should I call you John?” )
Enough. I’m soooooo done w/ all this.
- mabel weller
  
  Headstrong? Reread your comments and tell me, isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black? I am who I say I am. Such distrust and vitriol from you . Allan Bazzoli’s letter to the editor in yesterdays paper was filled with hatred . This is not only a vendetta against religion, but against the messengers . It also smacks of politics. It’s Madalyn Murray O’Hare all over again.Now you are attacking me. So much for open discussions. Don’t like the message? Attack the messenger. Right?
- mabel weller
  
  PS–If I looked up your name, my2cents worth, would it be listed in the phone book? Who exactly is hiding behind a computer? HMMMM?
miriam st. jean

mabel

we ALL have the right to believe or disbelieve anything we wish

your beliefs do NOT supercede anothers’

Freshwater does NOT have the right to lie repeatedly, and get a “pass’ for being a proven liar because he says he’s a “christian’

doggone it, woman, read all the information to be found on the web in this matter, okay? stop giving that lying, obstructing, delusional man the benefit of the doubt because you “think” he’s a “christian.”
- liberalism is a mental disorder
  
  is it Freedom Of Religion or Freedom FROM Religion the founders were talking about? In 1787 the very year the constitution was written and approved by congress, that same congress passed the ” Northwest Ordinance” In it they emphasized the essential need to teach religion and morality in schools. Here is the way they said it: “Article 3: Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged” but having freedom of religion the schhols could not very well teach just one religion or all religions so the founders came up with 5 “fundamental points” to be taught in schools. 1) There exists a creator who made all things and mankind should recognize and worship him. 2) The Creator has revealed a moral code of behavior for happy living which distinguishes right from wrong. 3) The Creator holds mankind responsible for the way they treat each other. 4) All mankind live beyond this life. 5) In the next life mankind are judged for their conduct in this one. These are the beliefs which the founders sometimes reffered to as the ” Religion of America” and they felt these fundementals were so important in providing ” good government and happiness of mankind” that they wanted them taught in public schools along with morality and knowledge.
  - mabel weller
    
    pOINT WELL TAKEN. tHANK YOU!
OH DEAR GOD

@ Mabel

We are NOT a christian nation. If we were, then i would be forced to believe in a jesus and his teachings. Thankfully i use my own brain to make decisions and not listen to rush limbaugh and glenn beck as you apparently do. Because if you dont know this OBAMA IS A CHRISTIAN. HE IS NOT MUSLIM. and so what if he was a muslim, as you said we have religious freedom.

Would you Support Mr Freshwater if he had a muslim name and a Koran on his desk?Probably Not.
- mabel weller
  
  NO,I would not.They think we are all infidels and deserve to be killed, I explained to you what Christ’s teachings were about. Love, and obedience. If you do not believe in Christianity, that is your choice and just as you do not want my beliefs forced on your children, neither do I want yours forced on mine. That is what the secular world is trying to do–removing God from everything. Satan is alive and well but God is Omnipotent and His Word will survive.
- mabel weller
  
  I must add, that from the beginning of Creation (not evolution) , God gave man free will to believe or not to believe. No one is trying to force you to believe anything, I’m not sure how Rush, Gken, and Fox News got into the mix, but your disdain of them sheds light on where you stand on a number of issues.Case closed!
M. Baker

Mable,

Just to add a little more to what I said earlier, I too have read the paper as well as other information concerning the testimony that was not in the paper. The Mt Vernon paper has been very conservative in what they print, and if you read the testimony presented, it is very obvious he is losing this case and had flagrantly violated his contract. It appears as if he is trying to make himself look like a martyr out of this, but he is failing miserbly. Maybe Dave Daubenmire and his followers think he is, but it is obvious to all that he has been lying throughout this hearing and will lose hands down. This man is not a good teacher, and should not be teaching children in a public school. the school board was absolutely right in firing him and had also ask him to remove the religious material and bible from his room. He failed to follow through in doing what they had a right to request, and now he is using the school boards money that would be better spent on the children, where it should be spent.
- mabel weller
  
  Your replies only make me sadder and more perplexed. Just what do you believe? The Constitution states that the government will not establish a religion but we are to have freedom of religion. Obama states that we are not a Christian nation and I believe would like to push Islam on us. Yet polls show over 80 percent or more of us Americans consider ourselves Christian.We did escape from opression of religion in order to worship freely. Now some are trying to pervert the Constitution. I’ve heard the sorry arguement that Thomas Jefferson supposedly said, only to have it explained away. I think he might turn over in his grave if he was aware of the travesty taking place in the USA. People can burn our flag,marry the same sex, etc,kill the unborn, and that’s ok with the liberal thinkers, but a Bible on a desk in a classroom, a teacher praying at an FCA meeting? The world has gone crazy. It upsets me until I recall that all of this is predicted in the Book Of Revelations.What this whole fiasco has done is to bring to light, the true purpose of “Education” today.
M. Baker

No one is saying it is a crime to be a “Chistian”, just leave the church out of our schools and government. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the constitution, signed it, and was a President, stated clearly in his letters that religion should not interfer with government. Our Founding Fathers escaped a government where religion did interfer with government and they spefically wanted the separation of Church and State. John Adams, another signer of the Constitution and our second President, also was a strong believer in the separation of church and State and also said that our country is not a Christian nation. He wasn’t stating there were not Christians in our country and they are not welcomed, but that there were other religions in our country and they were all welcomed, not just Christians. Because of our different religious beliefs, religion is best left out of our government and especially our schools. Parents are the only people who should introduce children to a particular religion, not a school teacher.
David

Mabel,

It’s not all about religion. I would suggest you read all the stories by this newspaper and others to learn about what has transpired. Dave Daubenmire made the issue about the Bible being on the desk. John Freshwater had nothing to do with the statement. John Freshwater was used by Dave Daubenmire to push an agenda.

I have no doubt that John Freshwater is a good man, but he’s running with the wrong crowd. He used a position of authority to spout some rhetoric that isn’t at the heart of Christian values. He told a teacher that he would have to check “his” Bible to see if a Catholic is an actual Christian. That’s selective believing. I don’t think Jesus and his disciples would differentiate, do you?
- mabel weller
  
  Jesus wanted no divisions among us. That is why His teachings on the way to salvation was so simple. Hear, belive, REPENT, and be baptized, in that order. He wanted us to be one in Him. You’re wrong about why all of this has taken place, and I have read all of this newspapers articles plus a lot of other biased “news”. It’s been a witch hunt from the very beginning. Why is it so easy to fire a teacher who is a Christian and so hard to fire an incompetent tenured one? I was raised in an abusive alcoholic home. My dad never abused us children, but he did my mother when she went to the bar on payday to try to prevent him from blowing money on his drunken friends in order for us to have grocery money. We have even sat in a cold car until the bar closed. She thought if we were along, he would come home. Never worked. There are a lot of horrible moments i could relate as a result of his sickness. Children should not have to live this kind of life, yet we know it is very prevalent in todays world and even worse as now drug addiction is part of it too. My dad was raised as a Baptist, yet we never saw the inside of a church or heard God’s name mentioned in anything other than a curse word. Yet, we were raised with high moral values and were punished for small infractions. I don’t regret that. A couple of switchings and the lessons were learned. I myself ,without any church training ,have always felt and relied upon the presence of God in my life. I’m sure there were prayers said in my school that kept that faith alive, and a little old Christian neighbor who would ask me to walk with her to the little rural church a mile down our country road. Looking back, I realize it was her way of reaching out to us kids, but I was the only one who went. My point in all of this is, like me, so many children today have no church background or learning and school might be their only resource.My dad was a proud man and would accept no charity, and that included people willing to pick us up and take us to church. I thank God daily, that by some miracle, I didn’t fall through the cracks or succumb to my dad’s faulty genes. By the way, my 3 brothers and two sisters all married Catholics. We have had our share of Holy Wars yet still love and accept each other,One final thought and that is, I have personally had the death and dying experience in 1974.I have had numerous close calls since then in the last two years, including a trip to Riverside by Med Flight and another right before Christmas.God has never ceased to answer my prayers/ I ask you, should there be so much animosity between your faith and mine?
my2centsworth

To Mabel Weller…..
Mr Freshwater claims to a true christian, & you are behind him all the way. But why doesnt he follows the bible the way he should be?
He is pushy, arrogant, not open to any agreement, w/out self control, unreasonable, fierce,& having a form of devotion but proving false to it.
Taken straight from the bible. It is there to prove there is people like this, & he is one.
Would Jesus continue to argue about “his rights” for as long as Freshwater has? NO!
Sometimes in life we just have to move on, & get over it. We dont always get our way.
I would never want him to teach my children now that he has shown what kind of person he really is. And definately never try to teach anything from the bible.
- mabel weller
  
  No, Jesus didn’t argue his case because He knew He was put on earth for a special mission. He did His teachings to all who would listen and believe, and there were those who were fearful of His teachings and influence and persecuted and crucified Him. His sin, preaching love, healing the sick, and giving those lost in sin a way of salvation. Then, He commissioned his disciples to go into the world and preach the Gospel so all could be saved and have eternal life. All of us as Christians are required to do the same thing. It’s not about hate, it’s about love and concern for our fellow man’s soul. For those who choose not to believe,that is their right, but we would be remiss in our duties not to give them the message, to accept or reject as they see fit. It has been stated, “i would rather live as though there is a Heaven and eternal life after death and be wrong, than to live as if there is none and be wrong.
- mabel weller
  
  I just want to add, that I do not know Mr. Freshwater. I just feel he is being punished for being an out in the open Christian teacher. OH MY!!HOW AWFUL! HOW DARE HE?!! In my lifetime, and there are quite a few years, I never dreamed we would be having this kind of problem in America, in a small community, and in our school system. I remember Kruschev saying, Communist Russia would never have to go to war with America in order to take over. All they had to do was win the minds of our school children. We are now seeing this come to fruition as a result of liberals indoctrinating young people in our colleges and universities, then sending them out to teach . So, yes, Mr. Freshwater is a Godsend . Finally, though, conservatives are starting to push back and it’s about time!
OH DEAR GOD

@ Mabel Webber

I am not sure where to begin. so i will only say this. You say it is a “crime” to be a christian in todays schools. I would like to remind you that we are a Nation of Laws, not a religious state. therefore everyone has the right to believe in whatever religion they believe and because of this amazing act by our founding fathers we do not have to be subject to religious persecution. Children of all races and beliefs do not need to be afraid of a teacher who teaches a religion that doesnt coincide with their own beliefs.

While Mr. Freshwater may have been an amazing teacher, ones religious and political beliefs must take a back seat when teaching children.
- mabel weller
  
  Yet you believe that our rights as Christians are not valid and we should remain passive and silent while the curriculum that goes against all we believe is being presented as fact. I’m sure you have heard the oft quoted “All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to remain silent. ” An atheist managed to get that law through a liberal Supreme Court. It is not an original law and since it’s inception, our educational system and our young people have been on a downward spiral. It began in the 60′s and has become progrssively worse. I was raising children during those troubling times, and was privy to first hand progressive teachers trying to influence my children with their liberal nonsense.How is that any more right than a Christian teacher trying to instill moral characteristics in a child?
M. Baker

It’s even more obvious after todays testimony, that Freshwater’s only goal was to introduce religion in the classroom. He tried first by going through the system, and when that failed he tried to do it on his own. Using lessons from Creationist is a direct conflict with the curriculum standards established by the State of Ohio. After being asked and refusing to remove his Bible from the top of his desk, when all he needed to do was just put the Bible in his desk drawer, clearly illustrates his intentions as well as to question his truthfulness during his testimony in this hearing. I hope the School Board goes after him to recover the cost of this hearing, but it is clear the School Board will never recover a red cent from Freshwater.

I do hope his Ohio teachers license records the accusations leveled by the School Board and the final results of this hearing. The fact that his record could effect any future teaching opportunities in the future is unfortunate, but then again he seriously violated a State established teaching standard. The obvious question is if any parent or school board could trust him to follow the State established curriculum guidlines in the future, or would he again revert back to teaching his religious dogma in an effort to establish religion in the classroom, and cost another school board rediculous amount of tax payers money and time like he is causing for the Mt. Vernon School District.
- mabel weller
  
  How sad that it is now a crime to be a Christian in our school system, especially as a teacher. The secular world will not be happy until all mention of God is gone, but it will never happen. They have been trying for many generations, even crucifying Christ and imprisoning His apostles and martyring them. How refreshing to read of a teacher who is concerned with the morals of the young people in todays society. How sad it is that it is okay to teach our very young that homosexuality is okay, and that wanting an honest debate about the theory of evolution is criminal. Evolution IS just a theory and not all scientists believe in it. If there are some in our society who want to believe they evolved from apes, so be it. Maybe THEY did, I do not choose to beleve that and I feel that is the REAL CRIME–shoving this down our children’s throats as fact. It’s useless to use the Bible as a source of instruction for those who do not believe it’s content, but I can’t resist quoting, “God shall not be mocked,” I can only say a prayer for Mr. Freshwater, because I am convinced he is being tried in a kangaroo court. Stand tall and firm, Mr. Freshwater. Your reward will be great in Heaven.
comeon

And so it will go on and on and on and on……………………………………..
jt

37 days of testimony in over two years. oh boy. we are really moving now!
is it me or would anyone else like them to pick up the damn pace a little.
it’s time for the judge to quit allowing any more delays. get it over with.
how much paper has the news wasted on this case??? half of sherwood forest
i would imagine.