Tag Archives: ZZADF: 26010

LA Times: Coppedge found his lawyer, William Becker, through the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian group that’s also helping fund Coppedge’s defense. Becker has also worked with the Discovery Institute, a prominent intelligent design group based in Seattle and a key force in helping portray Coppedge as a victim of religious bigotry. “There is a worldview war in this country,” Becker said in an interview. “There’s a battle between people who think religious people are trying to disrupt the integrity of the scientific method and those who know we’re not.”

San Gabriel Valley Tribune: An attorney for David Coppedge said his client was subjected to “stubborn and complete intolerance” of his beliefs while working for JPL. It was that attitude which hastened Coppedge’s firing, attorney William J. Becker, Jr. argued in a month-long trial that pitted science and religion in a way that was sometimes reminiscent of the 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial . . . Becker is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian group. Josh Youngkin, program officer in law and policy at Discovery Institute, which advocates from intelligent design and creation science, is assisting with the case of Coppedge’s behalf.

AP: David Coppedge, a former computer specialist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spent much of his free time advocating for the idea that a higher intelligence must have had a hand in creation. Now, a judge will decide if his commitment to that belief has also cost him his job.

Christian Post: The Alliance Defense Fund, and the Discovery Institute, a proponent of intelligent design, are both supporting Copp edge’s case.


Fox News: Intelligent design does not propose that there is a higher power, it doesn’t even suggest what the intelligent designer is or could be. It only explains that there are examples of design in nature that we can related to our own common experiences,” attorney William Becker told Fox News . . . The case has generated interest among supporters of intelligent design. The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian civil rights group, and the Discovery Institute, a proponent of intelligent design, are both supporting Coppedge’s case.

Boston Globe (AP): The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian civil rights group, and the Discovery Institute, a proponent of intelligent design, are both supporting Coppedge’s case. “There is basically a war on anyone who dissents from Darwin and we’ve seen that for several years,’’ said John West of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.

Charlie Butts at One News Now: William Becker of the Los Angeles-based Becker Law Firm is an Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) ally representing Coppedge. He says JPL’s action is illegal discrimination. “Employees shouldn’t be threatened with termination and punished for sharing their opinion with willing co-workers just because the view being shared doesn’t fit the prevailing view in the workplace,” Becker contends. “Mr. Coppedge has always maintained that intelligent design is a scientific theory, but JPL has illegally discriminated against him on the basis of what it deems to be ‘religion.’”

Glendale News-Press: William Becker, an attorney with the nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund who is representing Coppedge, said his client was disciplined for his Christian beliefs. “They don’t have a policy against discussing religion and politics, so they essentially singled him out. He was forbidden from doing something everybody else was allowed to do,” Becker said . . . “Throughout the scientific and academic worlds in this country, if you dare insert what somebody perceives to be your evangelical Christian values — if they think you’re doing that — heads roll,” Becker said.

CNA: “Employees shouldn’t be threatened with termination and punished for sharing their opinion with willing co-workers just because the view being shared doesn’t fit the prevailing view in the workplace,” said Coppedge’s attorney William Becker, who is allied with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney William Becker will be available for media interviews following each day of a five-week trial that begins Thursday over a NASA mission specialist demoted by Jet Propulsion Laboratories for his beliefs about intelligent design.