Parents Charge Textbooks Equate Humans, Animals

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — Fundamentalist Christian parents seeking alternative textbooks in Tennessee public schools rested their case today after testimony that some books violate the Bible by teaching that “humans are animals.”

The trial was recessed in U.S. District Court until Monday, when officials of the Hawkins County Board of Education will begin their defense.

Mel Gabler, 71, a Texan who has spent the last 25 years trying to get God put back in school textbooks, was among the final witnesses for the plaintiffs.

Gabler said he is offended by a theme that “animals are equal to humans,” one of 16 textbook themes identified as objectionable by the parents from Church Hill.

‘No Hope Beyond Grave’

“It would fit in with the idea that humans are animals--only a little more advanced,” Gabler said. “The texts themselves seem to teach the humanist manifesto values.”

Gabler said the readers used in Hawkins County schools teach a “false definition of death, that there’s no hope beyond the grave.”

The families charge the texts violate their religious beliefs with topics such as humanism, evolution, witchcraft, rebellion against parents and criticism of the government.

Also testifying today was Jerry W. Horner, dean of the School of Biblical Studies at Pat Robertson’s CBN University in Virginia Beach, Va., who said the parents have a Christian duty to protect their children against anti-Christian teachings.

In testimony Thursday, Janet Whitaker, one of the parents, said she could sense something different about her son Steve when he was forced to read the Holt Basic Reader.

“I could tell a change in his personality that few weeks he had to participate (in the reading class). He had even become a little rebellious,” said Whitaker, who approved her son’s refusal to read from the books, leading to his suspension from Church Hill Middle School in late 1983.

Patrick Groff, a professor at San Diego State University, testified that public schools should provide special textbooks on request for fundamentalist Christians the way special services are offered to handicapped and bilingual students.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hull is hearing the suit by seven fundamentalist families against Hawkins County school officials over the Holt, Rinehart and Winston reading series, which is widely used throughout the nation.

The families say they want their children--many of whom now go to private Christian schools--to learn from alternative textbooks and to be segregated from students reading from the Holt books.

School officials and their lawyers say the parents’ demand would cause chaos in the local schools and set a dangerous national precedent. Both sides agreed the issue could end up before the Supreme Court.

Damage to reading habits charged. Page 23.