In Constitutional Rights, Capistrano Senior Earns ‘A’

John Peloza, a biology teacher at Mission Viejo’s Capistrano Valley High School, is a true believer. He is a Christian,born again. His faith demands that he spread the word of God, his God, whenever he has the chance.

On campus, for instance.

John Peloza teaches that evolution is a fraud. The Bible says that God created heaven and earth. And John Peloza believes that the Bible is unequivocally right.

He says that science backs him up.

Emily Long, a senior at Capistrano Valley High School, is a true believer herself--of a different sort. She believes in the U.S. Constitution and in her God too. She is Roman Catholic.

Emily Long didn’t think that this was a big deal before she put some of her thoughts on the subject down in writing. Her column appeared in the high school newspaper, Paw Prints, directly under a column by John Peloza.

Both columns were labeled opinion. Each expressed its author’s point of view.

Peloza argued, with lots of dots and exclamation points, that he has scientific evidence debunking evolution. He said that he shares this with his students and then offers an alternative: “purposeful design.”

Emily Long said that was just a fancy phrase for creationism. Emily’s column didn’t have any exclamation points. Her arguments were understated, logical and cool.

She said that what John Peloza was doing was illegal and wrong.

If I were judging a journalism contest between the two, Emily’s column would win. Peloza’s would not even place.

But the contest, now, is much larger than any of that.

Peloza, backed by the Rutherford Institute--activist Christian attorneys for the Operation Rescue anti-abortion movement, among other causes--is threatening to sue Paw Prints, its faculty adviser and the school board. He has spared Emily for now, although they have exchanged rather heated words.

Peloza, 36, tells me that he has been defamed, then adds, “That’s a real understatement.”

And he has already filed a grievance against the district after the school principal put a written reprimand in his personnel file about his alleged proselytizing at school.

Peloza admits that he told two Jewish students that the Bible says they will go to hell unless they accept Jesus Christ. He gave one of them a Bible. He says that the students came to him, at different times.

The girls’ parents complained.

Peloza says that he is being persecuted for his faith. He suggests that he is responding to a higher law, one that need not conform to secular education codes.

He seems to delight in taking on anybody who would suggest that perhaps his is not the only way. He chooses his terms with care. He has many friends and supporters--students, parents, teachers and representatives from the religious right--who tell him that he is doing God’s will.

John Peloza tells me that he feels “called.”

Emily Long, 17 years old, quiet, rather bookish, a teen-ager who long ago made up her mind about what is wrong and right, seems an unlikely choice to take on such a self-styled firebrand.

Her earliest education, before moving to Orange County from Los Angeles when she was in the fourth grade, was in Catholic school.

When I met her the other day after classes, she asked that I accompany her first to a vice principal’s office to ask if it was OK because, Emily explains, those are the rules.

“I am not against God,” Emily says. Although others have suggested as much.

Shortly after Emily’s column ran, flyers addressed to “Christian Cougars”--a reference to the school mascot--appeared on campus urging support for Peloza and his cause. The school district has received many letters expressing such support.

“I am against mixing religion with the state,” Emily goes on. “Our founding fathers realized the mistake. That is why they came here.”

When Emily speaks, little emotion escapes in her voice; her eyes focus on her thoughts. She says she that is glad she spoke up in her column, that she feels good about making people think.

Although she is on the school newspaper staff, as the advertising manager, she hasn’t written for it too much. She remembers that she wrote about the driver’s training program being canceled.

When the controversy over John Peloza appeared in general-circulation newspapers earlier this year, Paw Prints thought that it should weigh in too. Except staff writers were reluctant to take Peloza on.

Emily volunteered.

“Funny thing is, I looked at her personality and asked her to be the ad person,” says Jim Corbett, Paw Prints’ faculty adviser. “We needed the money. And Emily sold $1,300 in ads. . . .

“When this came up (with Peloza), we needed somebody smart and sensitive. In retrospect, it was like giving her a hand grenade. Thank God we gave it to Emily. Whatever she wants to do, she can.”

“I don’t know if I should say this,” Emily says. “But the fundamentalists are trying to take over the schools down here.”

That is about as fiery as Emily Long’s oratory gets. When she says it, she gives a girlish, rather embarrassed smile.

Emily’s parents, Kathleen and Gary Long, are as proud of their daughter now as they’ve ever been. All of this was her idea.

Gary Long, in fact, thinks that maybe teaching creationism, along with evolution, might not be such a bad way to go. He says that if both were presented objectively, it might allow students to make up their own minds.

“I don’t think Em and I agree 100%,” he says. “But on the main point, that there should be a separation of church and state, we do.”

If Peloza makes good on his threat to sue over Emily’s Paw Print column--which he and his lawyer assured me that he would--Gary Long, an attorney, says that his legal firm might defend the case free of charge.

Emily’s parents say they raised their daughter to be honest, forthright--to use reason as a defense of right.

When Emily misbehaved as a child, Kathleen Long says, she would make her daughter, the oldest of three kids, write an essay explaining why. A topic that she recalls was, “Why I don’t want to practice my violin.”

“She’s a quiet kid,” says Gary Long. “But she’s really got nerves of steel.”

John Peloza and his attorney, of course, see things through a different lens. They say that Emily Long has been “used.” They call her a victim. They say her column was a front for forces that would go against God.

This is simply not true, and a red herring to boot. Emily Long was just speaking her mind, exercising her constitutional right.

And she does it very well.