A mother suing the Brookfield School District alleging her Christian teen was denied his First Amendment rights to write about Jesus in school, appeared on the FoxNews Channel show "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday night.

Peggy Koehler of Masury, along with her attorney, Mark Colucci of Youngstown, joined the show via satellite from Cleveland, with John Gibson filling in for Bill O'Reilly, to give their reasons for filing the $1.5 million lawsuit against the school district.

Ms. Koehler's son, Phillip Vacarro, 14, wanted to write a letter to Jesus after his middle school teacher assigned a letter writing exercise to his class last spring, but his teacher told him Jesus wasn't a real person and to pick another topic. The incident left Vacarro emotionally devastated and caused him to miss school and fail classes and he had to seek treatment for depression, the lawsuit states.

Ms. Koehler said on "The O'Reilly Factor" the incident hasn't shattered her son's belief in Jesus, but it has done harm to her entire family.

"It's made it very difficult for us to even live in our own community," she said.

She described her son the day he came home from school following the incident. She said he felt horrible and wanted to know why he wasn't allowed to write a letter to Jesus.

"He said 'Mom, why can't I do this? Why can't I write a letter to Jesus? He's my Lord and Savior," she said.

Playing devil's advocate, Gibson asked if perhaps her son had misunderstood the teacher's instructions.

"The teacher evidently wanted a letter that you could send to somebody...as an exercise for letter writing. The teacher evidently didn't want (Vacarro) writing to an infinite being. She didn't want him writing to God. Is that so awful?"

Colucci said the teacher, who is an authority figure and who works for the state, was wrong to tell the educationally challenged boy that he couldn't write about Jesus.

"In my view, that is a district infringement on First Amendment right for freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Although it sounds like a small battle, it took a big toll on Phillip. He had a lot of trouble seeing this authority figure shatter his belief system," Colucci said.

He said his clients received a letter from the Brookfield teachers union, embarrassed the lawsuit "isn't being contained" and has come to television.

"Here's the thing," Colucci said, "They had five months to respond. I sent them a certified letter wanting to sit down with the parents and get this worked out. They didn't respond," he said.

Phillip didn't appear on the program. His mother previously said he wouldn't appear because he "has been traumatized enough."