Without going into a lot of details, let’s just say that teacher, John Freshwater of Mount Vernon, was removed from classroom teaching pending an administrative hearing about insubordination. After a two-year-long administrative hearing process, Freshwater lost his job earlier this year. He and the Mount Vernon school system were also named in a federal discrimination complaint brought by a student’s family; the school district settled out of court and Freshwater, following an unsuccessful appeal, also had to pay damages to the family. Meanwhile, he filed, and later dropped, his own discrimination complaint in federal court against the school system.

So, after all these proceedings which suggest that Freshwater was to some degree culpable, I learn that he has the nerve to play the victim card on David Barton and Rick Green’s WallBuilders Live radio program.

Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.

Freshwater: When the 2007/2008 school year came along, there was a new principal, a new Superintendent, and three new school board members and what took place that year was they wanted me to removed my Bible from my desk. And I felt I have academic freedoms and I thought I had the right to have my Bible on my desk, so I left it on my desk in 2007/2008 school year and they told me to remove it and that was when they suspended me – April 16, 2008 – they suspended me without pay and I’ve been in litigation since then, the last four years.

Green: What’s their complaint about having a Bible on your desk? I thought teachers were allowed to do that?

Freshwater: You know what? I thought so too, but they said I needed to remove it from my desk. Here is what it comes down to Rick, and it’s this: there is a lot of fear in public school teachers, especially Christian public school teachers. They put fear into them and they keep them ignorant; they don’t teach them, they don’t train them on it, so what a teacher does is they take off their religious beliefs, they take their hat off before they walk into a public school building because they don’t want to lose their job. They really don’t have a good understanding of this whole thing called religious belief and separation of church and state, it has been convoluted, it has been putting fear in the people and it is sad, it’s very sad for a public school teacher in a public school in America today.

Freshwater conveniently omitted the religious posters on his classroom walls, the shelf full of Bibles for students to borrow, his teaching of creationism in class, and comments disparaging Catholics, among others, as not being Christian, which were significant charges that led to his removal from teaching and the federal suit against him and the school system. It is true his principal told him to remove his Bible from his desk, so it was not in plain sight. It is also true that Freshwater refused, and also refused to change any of his other actions that got him and the school in hot water.

As for the malarkey that public school teachers have to leave their religion in the school parking lot, there are no laws that forbid teachers from keeping a Bible in their desk, praying privately or stating their own beliefs in a non-judgmental, non-threatening way to their students. There are laws, however, that forbid them from teaching creationism or Intelligent Design as valid “scientific theories” or using their teacher’s desk as a church pulpit to preach to a captive audience.

i won’t even mention the unprofessional, nay, stupid, practice of using a Tesla coil (technically, a high-voltage, high-frequency vacuum leak tester) to give volunteer students skin burns in the shape of an “x” (or a cross, depending on your viewpoint). These charges were also part of Freshwater’s legal woes, if not the catalyst that brought his other dubious actions to light.

Cry me a river, John Freshwater. You’re not a victim here. You’re the instigator — you made your own bed, now lie in it.

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If any readers are sufficiently curious to read about the Strange and Curious Case of John Freshwater, this link will take you to the Panda’s Thumb, where Richard Hoppe has chronicled in excruciating detail the whole saga.

The end is this: he will be dismissed from his teaching job at the Mount Vernon public schools.

Actually, that’s the same ending as before, but he was entitled to an administrative hearing, which dragged on for almost two years. In a decision released this week, the referee for the hearing agreed with the school district, and said, “Yup, Freshwater is out.”

John Freshwater purposely used his classroom to advance his Christian religious views knowing full well or ignoring the fact that those views might conflict with the private beliefs of his students. John Freshwater refused and/or failed to employ objectivity in his instruction of a variety of science subjects and, in so doing, endorsed a particular religious doctrine. By this course of conduct John Freshwater repeatedly violated the Establishment Clause. Without question, the repeated violation of the Constitution of The United States is a “fairly serious matter” and is, therefore, a valid basis for termination of John Freshwater’s contract(s). Further, he repeatedly acted in defiance of direct instructions and orders of the administrators – his superiors. These defiant acts are also a “fairly serious matter” and, therefore, a valid basis for termination of John Freshwater’s contract (s). My recommendation to the Board of Education of the Mount Vernon City School District is that the Board terminate John Freshwater’s contract(s) for “good and just cause”.

Way back in 2008, Freshwater made a name for himself for two things: refusing to remove a copy of the Bible from the top of his desk, as directed by his principal, and burning a cross-shaped design on a student’s arm with a Tesla coil. (A Tesla coil is a high-voltage device that we physics teachers like to use for a lot of demos — on inanimate objects, not people.)

Freshwater was sued, not only for the burning, but also for the flagrant abuse of his teacher’s “bully pulpit” to teach his version of Christianity, which denies evolution, the Big Bang, and related scientific ideas. His room had many Christian-themed posters. His handouts and teaching style deliberately taught evolution was bunk and the story of Creation in Genesis was the literal truth.

Richard Hoppe at The Panda’s Thumb has covered the whole saga from beginning to end, even to the point of sitting through the interminable hearings regarding Freshwater’s firing. I blogged about the case when it first broke, but decided I would wait until the dust settled before resuming commentary. As it is now, I need to wait until the end-of-term dust settles here before I have time to do it justice. So, if you’re wanting details, read the articles at Panda’s Thumb.

I’ll get back to you on that.

Bary, the Christian convert teen who ran away from home last year alleging her Muslim parents would kill her, apparently is rejecting chemotherapy for her uterine cancer, claiming she was cured by a faith healer. She is also rejecting a reunion with her family, whom law enforcement officials say pose no threat to her safety.

The teenager became a poster child for the anti-Muslim and/or born-again religious crowd after she ran away from her Columbus home to Orlando, Florida, claiming her parents would kill her because of her conversion to Christianity three years before she fled. She eventually ended up in foster care back in Ohio.

In May, the 17-year-old Sri Lankan native was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and has since had three operations.

According to news reports, documents filed by her parents in Franklin County Court state that Bary is refusing chemotherapy because she claims she was healed at an event in Youngstown last month. She was allegedly taken there without her parents’ consent, and her parents want the court to force Bary to undergo chemotherapy if she needs it.

A judge will decide on the parents’ motion today.

Meanwhile, Bary, who turns 18 next week, has refused to meet with her family. Her lawyers say the girl fears her parents still.

[Oh, ye of little faith. But I digress.]

Adding to the complexity of this passion play is the undocumented immigrant status of the entire Bary family. Rifqa is seeking to avoid deportation so she can continue her medical treatment … which her parents say she is refusing.

Confused yet? I’ve been following this story for a year, and even I have trouble understanding it.

If things weren’t already strange enough, it seems the neo-Pentecostal Christians surrounding Bary say she has a special prophetic role to play as someone who has escaped the “evil” of Islam.

Bary made a dramatic, and somewhat disturbing appearance on a telephone prayer call last year, at a time when she was supposed to be denied access to the people who helped her run lured her away from her home.

Islamophobe Pamela Geller has been touting Bary’s situation as another case of Muslim “honor killing” for apostasy (converting to Christianity), while accusing the girl’s parents of crimes they have neither committed nor seem inclined to commit.

The religious aspect of this family drama stinks worse than the Fulton fish market, as my mother used to say. This girl is being exploited by so-called faithful people who have no real regard for her welfare. They just want her to play a part in their imaginary End Times battle between Christians and Muslims.

If the girl had been helped by some wacko cult to run away from her Christian parents, the cult would have been vilified and the girl would be home now (maybe after some needed counseling). Does the name Elizabeth Smart ring any bells?

Instead, the supposedly well-meaning busybodies who interfered with the Bary’s family life — instead of going directly to civil authorities — get free passes because they are “Christian” and the girls’ parents are distrusted because they’re Muslim and in the State illegally.

It ain’t right.

The Sri Lankan-born high school graduate has had two operations already, and awaits a third.

Bary ran away to Florida in July with the help of a Christian pastor who had befriended her. Once arriving in Orlando, the girl, who says she converted to Christianity at 13, lived with married pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz for nearly two weeks before the Lorenzes told child welfare officials where Bary was.

In interviews, Bary claimed that her parents were upset with her conversion and that she was afraid that her father would kill her if she returned home. Law enforcement officials from Florida and Ohio, however, reported there was no credible threat to her safety.

Nevertheless, Bary has lived with foster parents in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, after her court-ordered return to Ohio in October. She turns 18 in August, at which point she will be able to leave foster care.

Her conversion and flight to Florida have become a rallying point for anti-Islamic Christian polemicists, who have used Bary as a “poster child” for honor killings, though there was never any real threat to her life. Meanwhile, they have accused Bary’s parents and their mosque of being Islamic extremists, though again there is no evidence of the allegations.

The whole situation is a sad commentary on the abuse of religious belief. That a young girl is so ill is even more tragic.

In the aftermath, the Lorenzes have lost their jobs. (Their church board took issue with the Lorenzes breaking the law by harboring a runaway child without notifying the proper authorities.) Her parents have lost their privacy and a great deal of their reputation. (Law enforcement investigations found the parents posed no threat to their daughter’s safety, but Bary’s anti-Islam fans still trumpet that the girl’s life was in danger.) And Bary will likely end up with a new identity as a “persecuted Christian” who escaped the clutches of Islam — a newly minted spokeswoman for the Religious Fear-mongering Right.

You wait. There’s bound to be a book or movie deal waiting in the wings. And the obligatory appearance on Oprah.

People held signs that said “Free Rifqa” and “Sharia sucks. Free Rifqa Bari. (sic)” There was a large poster that showed violence done to Muslims who have converted to Christianity, as Bary said she did four years ago. People prayed, and people spoke, and people made a controversy where none exists.

Hence, a manufactroversy.

How many people? Well, one of the organizers demagogues, Pamela Geller, says “hundreds.” The Columbus Dispatch says “about 120.”

Bary ran away from her Columbus home back in September. She and her family are Muslims from Sri Lanka, and according to newspaper accounts, her parents were perfectly OK with her reading the Bible, hanging out with Christian kids, and being a cheerleader.

But her many “supporters” — most of whom are fervent Christians — fervently believe her family, or the middle-of-the-road mosque to which they belong, will put the girl to death if she is sent back to her family. Law enforcement officers discount that likelihood, but since when do True Believers™ believe John Law?

The rally “crowd” was also upset that a family court judge has closed to the public the hearings being held to decide whether Bary is an unruly teenager, as her parents allege, and whether she can leave foster care. They also have their underwear in knots about court orders restricting the girl’s access to the Internet, email and her cellphone.

To them, it’s all some kind of sinister Islamic plot to subvert the American justice system and wage war on Christians, right there in the newly formed Islamic Republic of Ohio. If they didn’t have their heads on backwards, they might realize that closing custody issue hearings and limiting a minors’ access to possibly harmful influences are pretty routine stuff, nothing to see here, folks, just move along.

Bary took off from her home after meeting some Christians on Facebook and spending time with a pastor in Columbus. Her Christian friends helped her take a bus to Orlando, Florida, where she stayed with a rather dodgy sounding Baptist minister and his wife for nearly two weeks before anyone notified Florida’s child welfare office of her whereabouts.

Meanwhile, her worried parents had no idea where she was. But, hey, it’s OK to keep them in the dark, because they’re “evil, murdering Muslims.”

You think I exaggerate? The Dispatch says some folks at the rally were wearing T-shirts that said “Islam is of the devil.” Such warm hearted folks.

In the reality-based world, a runaway child returning home would be a good thing, if the parents are decent, upstanding members of society, which the Barys appear to be.

In the apocalyptic world of the far-far-rightwing, however, Rifqa’s Muslim parents are sure to kill their Christian convert daughter, because, you know, all Muslims do that sort of thing, every day. Pamela Geller and her fellow Muslim-haters have themselves worked up into a froth, accusing the Bary family of every crime known to humanity, merely because the Barys are Muslim …

… and because Rifqa, whose own grip on reality seems kind of tenuous, has people convinced that her family will either kill her or arrange for her sudden demise once she returns to that lawless hotbed of Islamic terrorism, Columbus, Ohio.

Law enforcement officers and child welfare officials say the likelihood of Rifqa being killed is nil. Her parents are pretty normal sounding, middle-class Americans who have the “misfortune” of being dark-skinned Muslim immigrants with exotic names.

The parallels to the “birther” crusade are obvious. A lot of folks also cannot accept that a dark-skinned son of a foreign-born Muslim with an exotic name became president of the USA.

Meanwhile, Rifqa’s rightwing Christian supporters are now claiming that the child protection services of both Florida and Ohio (two hotbeds of flaming liberalism and soon-to-be Islamic republics) are violating the girl’s freedom of religion by restricting her access to the Internet, email and her cellphone. You know, Pontius Pilate did the same thing to Jesus, just before his execution.

Rifqa Bary became a Christian about four years ago. Her parents knew about it. She got on Facebook, found some friends there of the born-again, Christian warrior variety, and got really close to said Christians. These people then helped Rifqa leave home, take a Greyhound bus to Orlando, Florida, where she stayed with another Christian warrior pastor and his wife for almost two weeks before they handed her over to child protection services.

Then, while she was in foster care, Rifqa ended up speaking on a national conference prayer call with some movers and shakers of the Christian warrior cult movement.

Duh. Ohio wants to make sure she doesn’t take off again, or unwittingly fan the flames of anti-Islamic hysteria. So, sorry, kid, no phone or computer privileges. It makes sense to me. Rifqa has become a pawn in someone’s bigger game, so the Ohio judge who put the restrictions in place is doing the right thing, protecting a child.

(Yeah, yeah, I know, 17 is too old to be called a child, but in the eyes of the law, she’s a minor until she turns 18 next summer.)

Right Wing Watch has more details on this circus sideshow.