Ohio Supreme Court hears appeal from creationist teacher

John Freshwater used to be a science teacher at an Ohio school. His science lessons included promoting creationism and a "Christian view against homosexuality." As a bonus, Mr. Freshwater reportedly burned holy crosses on students' arms using a highly scientific Tesla coil.

Imagine his outrage when he was fired. Fortunately for Mr. Freshwater, the Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear his case.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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MatthewBrauer

Richard Hoppe at the Panda’s Thumb has been providing the go-to commentary throughout this sordid affair. I’d highly recommend reading his thorough account of the multi-year mess, the likes of which may be coming to a school district near you.
- xenphilos
  
  Here’s the link for those interested: http://pandasthumb.org/archives/author/richard-b-hoppe-1/
Mitchell Glaser

They should burn “Christ, what an asshole!” into his forehead with a Tesla coil.
ldobe

What possible excuse could a teacher have for mutilating his students?

I’m pretty sure there’s none, and I hope he gets similar treatment from his fellow inmates when he goes to prison.

Edit:
I rtfa, and am still pissed. He was sued in 2008 over the branding, and the plaintiff settled for $450,000. How is it that an adult actively branding a child isn’t a criminal offense? It doesn’t matter whether the kid consented. It’s either assault or at the very least reckless endangerment.

What an asshole.
- lafave
  
  you can’t consent to a battery (consent isn’t a defense)
  - ldobe
    
    I clarified a little bit in the edit. What I was getting at is that an adult can mutilate another consenting adult, and it’s legally sound as long as there is good documentation of consent. That’s essentially how body mods work. You can put a brand on another person as long as you put what they want, where they want, and have a license for body modding. Children can’t consent to that.
    
    But from the article it looks more like the excuse used by Freshwater was that he was demoing how harmless the device was. Which means he’s either lying (Which I’m betting he is), or he is a complete idiot, and how he could have been approved to teach in the first place is beyond me, if he really is that stupid.
  - jorgenfleisterman
    
    “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”
    
    The first rule about cross branding is that you do not talk about cross branding.
    
    But lets talk about how even if you believe in the cliche Christian teachings, what would getting a cross burnt into your arm have anything to do with salvation? Blessed are the mutilated?
    - C W
      
      “what would getting a cross burnt into your arm have anything to do with salvation”
      
      Suffering is divine.
    - EH
      
      Mark of the beast, not to mention this kind of thing is prohibited by the Old Testament, which is why Jews are prohibited from getting tattoos.
- Boundegar
  
  Furthermore, why doesn’t he know that a Tesla coil is an instrument of Satan and a tool of godless scientists? His Pastor needs to be investigated by the Inquisition.
IamInnocent

The alleged cross burning constitutes an assault, physical and moral. Shouldn’t he be on trial just for that ?
- ldobe
  
  According to the article he was sued in 2008 for the branding (which should have sent him to jail, since it’s a criminal act to mutilate someone else, especially if they are under the age of consent, since they can’t legally waive liability like with body mods done on consenting adults), and the plaintiff settled out of court for $450,000.
SomeGuyNamedMark

Can I force them to teach evolution in Sunday schools?

Glad to see he doesn’t dispute electromagnetics (or assault).
- http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
  
  Can’t be sure he doesn’t dispute electromagnets & atomic theory– it could just be the Holy Ghost at work. TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!
Emo Pinata

From what I understand, Freshwater claimed the cross was actually an “X” and he’s done it tons of time without any permanent injury (despite the machine itself being clearly labeled to not touch people with it) so crazy rule breaking aside the man should have lost his job for admitting to abusing the Tesla coil.

EDIT

so I found this snap from a Times story on the issue:

Miles away, Mr. Freshwater’s pastor, Don Matolyak, posited that the criticism of Mr. Freshwater was part of a larger trend toward bigotry against Christians.

“If he had a Koran on his desk, he’d be fine and no one would say a word to him,” Mr. Matolyak said. “If he had ‘Origin of Species’ on his desk, they would celebrate that.”
- jorgenfleisterman
  
  Yes, the liberal media and the justice system wouldn’t persecute a Muslim for branding students. Only Christians don’t get away with assault in this anti-Christian world…
- nixiebunny
  
  I think he’s wrong. I think that a Muslim creationist would be held in the same regard as a Christian creationist, when it comes to teaching science.
  
  Yes, science is bigoted against anti-scientists. Is that a problem?
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    In an ideal world a Muslim creationist would be held in the same regard as a Christian creationist when it came to teaching science.
    
    What makes Matolyak’s comments ridiculous is that in many places teachers who are Christians are allowed to espouse their beliefs without complaint, and prayers at school functions are a regular occurrence. In those same areas teachers–regardless of subject–who happen to be Muslim would probably be better off keeping that fact a secret.
  - C W
    
    “I think he’s wrong. I think that a Muslim creationist would be held in the same regard as a Christian creationist, when it comes to teaching science.”
    
    That guy’s yet another asshole who doesn’t know anything about his own religion and the origins of Islam.
- C W
  
  “If he had ‘Origin of Species’ on his desk, they would celebrate that.”
  Just imagine, a science teacher, owning SCIENCE BOOKS.
  - giantasterisk
    
    Many Christians consider Origin of Species to be a religious text for atheists.
    - http://www.gildedgreen.com/ Girard
      
      Many Christians are idiots. (And their ignorance of what constitutes a “religious text” often extends to their own religious text, of which they are woefully ignorant.)
      
      To be fair, though, many Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Pagans, Satanists, Mormons and so on are idiots, too. This is because many people are, in fact, idiots.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together!
- jccalhoun
  
  More than that, Freshwater has also been accused of saying Catholics aren’t Christians. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2008/10/31/Freshwater01.html So on one hand this guy is saying “oh people are bigoted against Christians!” while on the other being bigoted against people who he doesn’t think are the right kind of Christians. What a terrible person.
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    “Form a line! Shoulder to shoulder, facing the prisoner.”
    
    “Do you see that man? He is the enemy. All other men like him, women like him and their indoctrinated children are your enemy.”
    
    “You will kill your enemy until there are no more of that enemy to kill.”
    
    “Now look to your left. Look to your right. When there is no more of this enemy before you, these will be your enemy.”
    
    When there is only one person left alive, then will we have found God. Organized religion is just an extended live action version of Highlander.
- http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke
  
  “Abuse of a Tesla coil” is the most totally steampunk crime ever.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I’d like to hear from Freshwater’s defenders, and I’m sure he has some among both parents and school board members. Honestly, I’d like to hear them try to explain why it was okay for him to mutilate their children.

Although I have a pretty good idea what the defense will be. His defenders will disregard his use of a Tesla coil on students and instead loudly complain that he’s being persecuted for his beliefs.

What will be lost on them is that he does deserve to be persecuted for his beliefs, since they include the belief that it’s okay to harm students.
- RedShirt77
  
  It seems from the story that he hurt the child accidentally because he failed to understand the Tesla Coil. So I think the believe that seems the most dangerous here is that he thinks a science teacher doesn’t need to understand science.
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    To make it even worse this isn’t just a science teacher not understanding science. This is a science teacher who doesn’t have the literacy skills to understand that a warning not to apply the coil to skin means DON’T PUT IT ON SOMEBODY.
    
    Freshwater shouldn’t be teaching science or any other subject if he’s that illiterate.
    - FoolishOwl
      
      I’ve been surprised more than once by the alacrity with which people will treat warning labels with contempt and insist on doing the very thing the warning label says not to do, as a matter of pride.
- C W
  
  “I’d like to hear from Freshwater’s defenders, and I’m sure he has some among both parents and school board members. Honestly, I’d like to hear them try to explain why it was okay for him to mutilate their children.”
  
  And this is why they win a lot in the public mind, because people invite them to use logic, when they’ve never been about logic and “win” through the same bullshit appeals. They repeat the same things over and over again. There will be no insight to gain from having them speak out.
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    Thank you for that reminder of why people like Freshwater consistently win. I want to believe that he’s smart enough to know that what he did was wrong, but even if he is that doesn’t change the fact that he’s ethically challenged enough to know that all he has to do is scream “I’m being persecuted for my beliefs” and parents will line up to give him their kids’ college money to pay his court costs.
- jccalhoun
  
  From the comments on the local newspaper websites I skimmed https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=John+Freshwater&oq=John+Freshwater&gs_l=news it looks like his defenders aren’t talking about burning a kid but instead are mainly talking about freedom of speech and those old cliches “evolution is just a theory!” “liberals are tolerant of everything but Jebus!” “If it was was a damn muslum like that kenyan in the white house they wouldn’t say anything about it!” and “this is why Amurica is going to hell!”
Navin_Johnson

It’s like a Bizarro World version of “Inherit the Wind”.
voiceinthedistance

Hey, it was just a little Jesus logo folks. Nothing to see here, move along. Now that he’s marked, the kid might not even have to present a photo ID to get into heaven when he dies.
http://www.facebook.com/Adam.L.Burley Adam Burley

I grew up in Mount Vernon, and went to the middle school while Freshwater was working there. I never had him in class, and I did not hear anything even remotely as insane as what he supposedly did. However, I was there in the mid-90s and even then he did have a reputation of being ‘out there’.

Mount Vernon is home to several extremely conservative religious groups and a very large Nazarene university. I don’t have much struggle with the concept that he did what he did. What frustrates me is that he decries his actions and posits that he is just protecting free speech, while draining the school’s already-strained coffers dry with legal fees. We get it, man. You’re allowed to have free speech. You’re just not allowed to restrict students’ freedom of worship, abuse your power of authority, or teach things that are patently Not Science.
- starfish and coffee
  
  This is why I love reading the comment sections of BB. Whatever the original post, sooner or later someone will show up who has extremely specific and/or first hand knowledge about the subject at hand.
  Thank you sir!
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7720103 Denise Giffin
  
  Well said. I graduated with Adam, and his account is dead on. In ‘our day’, I never heard anything about him taking these kinds of actions when I was still a student at MVMS, but he’s always had the aforementioned out-there reputation. I’d also like to point out that I did notice that Freshwater and the groups he worked with getting more extreme over the past few years. That makes it all the more believable to me. Unfortunately, I think the end goal for this delusional martyrdom is to push it all the way to the US Supreme Court . . . a colossal waste of money for taxpayers, just as it was a waste of money for the unfortunate Mount Vernon City Schools district – one they couldn’t really afford.
  - http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton
    
    hopefully he will have to pay the legal costs back to the schools district.
- Carter Mason
  
  Freshwater was my eighth-grade science teacher, though I have to use the term pretty loosely. I don’t recall anything approaching physical harm to students while I was there (granted this was over 10 years ago).
  
  He did, however, blatantly promote Creationism in the form of Intelligent Design — as in, he used the phrase “Intelligent Design”. Also, he “taught” us things about evolution that were blatantly and utterly false. E.g., claiming that individual living organisms evolve, rather than populations, and telling us that human footprints have been found inside dinosaur footprints.
  
  I should also mention that there was pretty much no pressure on him to stop doing this (that I could see, anyway). And the fact that he’s only gotten in serious trouble for it in recent years tells me that he probably had another good 10 years of doing the same thing before anyone nailed him for it. Thank you, Mount Vernon, OH. I know a lot of people hate their hometowns, but it’s nice to get confirmation that my dislike for the place is completely justified.
  
  So, all in all, I think the school system wins by him being gone. Or it would if he wasn’t wasting their money with this court case.
- knappa
  
  I went to Kenyon (in nearby Gambier) and I remember a church in Mount Vernon we called the “Church of the bloody hand” for the large sign outside. It was so very creepy.
Warren_Terra

Unfortunately, being a religious bigot deliberately mis-instructing students and demeaning Teh Ghey probably wouldn’t have gotten him fired. I’m pretty confident that his wacky highjinks into the area of ssaulting and mutilating children trusted into his care will keep him fired – but surveys show that a huge proportion of American science teachers tell their charges Jesus-based lies, and presumably get away with it or even are thanked for their efforts by the similarly misguided parents of those children.
Matthew Stone

Honestly, Creationists like this are humongous frauds. You’re not a plumber if you never service pipes, you’re not a bounty hunter if you blow up too many planets, and you’re not a disciple of God if you don’t actually want to lead the life of goodwill he beseeches everyone to. So the next time you see someone preaching about how everyone’s going to Hell, keep in mind that all that person is doing is calling attention away from how he/she is the one who’s really going there.
IamInnocent

I know but I was under the impression that this was a civil case. Am I wrong ?

What I meant was that criminal charges should have been brought against Freshwater
http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton

One can only hope that some new evidence of crimes comes out in the trial so he can be locked up.