Yoga doesn’t bend rules on religion

LOS ANGELES – Yoga taught in a San Diego County school system is not a gateway to Hinduism and doesn’t violate the religious rights of students or their parents, a California appeals court ruled.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego upheld a lower court ruling that tossed out a family’s lawsuit that tried to block Encinitas Union School District from teaching yoga as an alternative to traditional gym classes.

“While the practice of yoga may be religious in some contexts, yoga classes as taught in the district are, as the trial court determined, ‘devoid of any religious, mystical, or spiritual trappings,’” the court wrote in a 3-0 opinion released April 3.

Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock and their two children had brought the lawsuit, claiming yoga promoted Hinduism and inhibited Christianity.

Standoff erupts in polygamous town

SALT LAKE CITY – Efforts by a former member of Warren Jeffs’ sect to retrieve her four children from a polygamous community led to a lengthy standoff after dozens of followers surrounded the woman’s van and some allegedly threw chickens at it.

Deputies were in Colorado City, Arizona, for seven hours April 3 until they received a search warrant to enter the home of an aunt who refused to give the kids to their mother, said Trish Carter, spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office.

Nobody was hurt, and when it was finally over, officials escorted Sabrina Tetzner and her four children across the Utah state line.

Tetzner recently received sole custody of her children – ages now 8, 9, 12 and 13 – and went to get them from an aunt’s home.

The sect known as The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism whose members believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven.

Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream Mormon church, but the faith abandoned the practice in 1890 and strictly prohibits it today.

Associated Press