The group claims that the decision of the school board in Lebec, some 100 kilometres north of Los Angeles, violated a constitutional ban on teaching religion in school.
The suit follows a court decision in Pennsylvania last month that banned a school district from teaching intelligent design as part of its science curriculum, ruling that design was 'an interesting theological argument, but ... not science.'
The plaintiffs in Lebec said in their suit that the course 'was designed to advance religious theories on the origins of life, including creationism and its offshoot 'intelligent design.''
They quoted a course description that said the course would examine flaws in Darwin's theory of evolution and discuss the alternative theory of intelligent design, including evidence 'suggesting the earth is thousands of years old, not billions.'
The course, which began January 3, is being taught by Sharon Lemburg, the wife of a local Christian fundamentalist preacher and a proponent of a creationist world view, the suit alleged. The parents are asking a U.S. District Court judge in Fresno to issue a temporary order barring the course.
Intelligent design holds that some biological systems are so complex they could not have evolved through random mutations, as the vast majority of biologists teach.
They argue that complexity is proof that life was formed by an intelligent designer - usually understood to mean God.
