California creation class taken to court

LEBEC, Calif., Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Parents in a small California school district are challenging a high school class there that teaches intelligent design in a philosophy class setting.

Eleven plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in Fresno, Calif., saying the course "Philosophy of Design" violates the U.S. Constitution, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Intelligent design is the belief that the world is so complex that an unnamed being must have created it.

The plaintiffs are parents of children at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec, Calif., 63 miles north of Los Angeles in the Tehachapi Mountains.

A course description distributed to parents said the class will use scientific, biological and biblical arguments against the theory of evolution.

The lawsuit also complains that special education teacher Sharon Lemburg will instruct the class. She has a bachelor of arts in physical education and social science, but no degree in science, religion or philosophy.

The lawsuit says she is the wife of the minister of a local Christian fundamentalist and pro-creationist church.