California Judge John Meyer ruled Monday that a yoga program in Encinitas Unified School District would continue, overruling a suit against it brought by husband and wife Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock. The Sedlocks, who have two children in the school district, argued that the yoga classes are inherently religious, violating the constitutional separation of church and state.
Meyer sided with the district, writes AP.com; after noting that yoga “at its roots is religious” the judge took almost 2 hours to explain why the school program is exercise-oriented, secular, and separate from the philosophy of traditional yoga
The lengthy discourse apparently resulted from a desire to correct some misconceptions in the lawsuit. “It's almost like a trial by Wikipedia, which isn't what this court does,” Meyer commented at one point, according to Reuters.com.
But the Sedlocks and their attorney, Dean Broyles, weren’t chastened by the judge’s disdain for their research methods, and plan to appeal. In fact, Broyles still believed he had a better grasp of yoga than the judge, saying “It was the judge's job to call balls and strikes and determine the facts. I think he got some of the facts wrong.”
Details of the yoga program, which censored all cultural, religious, and even linguistic Hindi references can be found in the initial report from TheCelebrityCafe.com from February. For general information on yoga, check out the infographic below.