Fundamentalists Claim 2 Superintendents ‘Torpedoed’ Forum

Charging that “secular humanist” school superintendents in south Orange County had “torpedoed” their efforts for a forum on education, two fundamentalist religious leaders on Monday postponed the event.

Robert L. Simonds, president of the Costa Mesa-based Citizens for Excellence in Education, accused Jerome Thornsley, superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District, and Peter Hartman, superintendent of Saddleback Valley Unified School District, of doing “everything possible to derail this peaceful informational forum. . . . “

The two superintendents, however, said they simply had raised questions about where the $10-per-person charge for the proposed “traditional values forum” would be spent.

In addition to Simonds’ group, the Anaheim-based California Coalition for Traditional Values was sponsoring the forum. The leader of that group, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, charged that Thornsley and Hartman and their school boards were “secular humanists” who feared the traditional values forum and thus worked against it.

The forum was scheduled to be held today at the Laguna Hills Holiday Inn and was to have featured Thomas Tancredo, a regional representative of the U. S. Department of Education; state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), and Orange County Education Supt. Robert Peterson.

All three speakers, however, withdrew from the event after Supt. Thornsley questioned how funds from the event would be spent. Thornsley said Monday that he raised the questions because literature distributed by the fundamentalist groups “was deliberately misleading.”

He said press releases from the California Coalition for Traditional Values said “all proceeds will be earmarked for educational use within the local Saddleback/Capistrano districts.”

Thornsley said the statement indicated the money “would be going to the Capistrano Unified and Saddleback Unified school districts when, in fact, it was being raised by a political action committee supporting candidates for the school boards.” He said he therefore called the offices of the proposed speakers and asked them if they knew they were speaking in behalf of political fund-raisers.

“I have no second thoughts about being vocal or engaging in questioning this event,” Thornsley said. “Their news releases were very deceptive and deliberately so. Those funds were not going to our school districts.”

Sheldon, however, said at a press conference Monday afternoon that the press releases weren’t intentionally misleading. “We stubbed our toe a little,” Sheldon said. “We should have explained that the money was going to educate parents in the two school districts, not to the districts themselves.”

Sheldon also conceded that the news releases might have been misleading since they were printed on political action committee stationery, thus indicating a connection to political fund raising.

But Sheldon said “the bigger issue is that this secular humanist corps is seeking to muzzle a traditional viewpoint.”

Sheldon and Simonds both have opposed the incumbent school boards of Saddleback Valley Unified and Capistrano Unified because the boards have voted against allowing religious organizations--or any other non-academic group--from using classrooms for meetings during school days.

Sheldon and Simonds and their organizations have pressed for both districts to allow such religious use of classrooms under the new federal “equal access” law. That law says that federal funds will be withheld from school districts that allow some non-academic groups to use classroom space during school days but not religious groups.

The school boards of Capistrano Unified and Saddleback Valley have voted to deny access to all non-academic groups.

“Our school board believes in strict separation of church and state,” Thornsley said.

Hartman said the Saddleback Valley school board “simply chose one of the two ways that exist to implement the (federal equal access) law.” He noted that the law allows a school board to withhold access from all non-academic groups, including religious organizations.

“I support traditional values,” Hartman said. He added that his only action had been to call the editor of the Orange County Register to inquire about a news story that said funds from the proposed “traditional values forum” were going to the school districts.

Sheldon and Simonds acknowledged that their groups are supporting school board candidates opposed to incumbents in Capistrano Unified and Saddleback Valley Unified. But they said the political action committee supporting those candidates had no connection with the proposed forum and would not have received money from the event.

They said the money was to have covered costs and probably would not have shown a profit. A new date for the forum will be announced some time after the Nov. 5 election, Sheldon and Simonds said.