A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that prohibited the distribution of Bibles to grade school students in a southern Missouri school district.
At issue was a long-held practice at South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, in which Gideons International representatives came to fifth-grade classrooms and gave away Bibles. A U.S. district judge issued a temporary injunction, and a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis agreed the classroom distribution should be prohibited.
In breaking news, the ACLU has agreed to call off it’s opposition to the bible distribution program as long as the book of Leviticus is removed and an accompanying packet of a Hustler and five condoms are provided concurrently.
Yes, we musn’t let *Fundamentalists* get in the way of secularist indoctrination. That’s “unconstitutional”, don’t ya know.
The school district was clearly violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment by permitting the distribution of a Christian text to fifth-graders in the classroom. Parents and churches should have this responsibility, not a school-sanctioned organization. Please note that the parents who filed the complaint were all Christian couples, and their reasons are just what I have stated. The problem is that the Bibles were distributed IN THE CLASSROOM. It would have been permissible to make them available (not distribute them) to students outside of school hours; such activities are constitutionally permissible, and students are free to accept or reject the materials. It is good to make and understand these distinction, which are so often lost or overlooked by critics of the ACLU.
In fact there are numerous instances where the ACLU has come to the defense of permissible religious activities in the public square, in defense of the “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment, but those instances are overlooked or conveniently ignored by those who wish to tar the organization with the atheist/secularist brush.
Also, if I wished to introduce my eleven-year-old grandson to a Bible, it would not be the KJV but a text he could read in the contemporary English he understands. After he’s read Shakespear, maybe then, I’d help him to appreciate the beauty of Tudor English.
Please note that the parents who filed the complaint were all Christian couples.
Clearly they have missed the point. Why on earth would Christian parents object to their children being given a Bible, by anyone, in any place?
Hmmmm. Compare this to the Arabic Public School in NY – you know, the one with the Muslim prayer room. Your tax dollars at work.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I just don’t get it. How did this amendment ever get interpreted so as to prevent the distribution of religious material at a state public school. No one was forcing anyone to read them were they?
I wonder what people would think if instead of the Bible, they distributed a copy of the Quran or The Book of Mormon (this one was actually distributed in my grade school class in Mormon territory).
Virgil, I think it would be fine. The kids don’t have to take them and don’t have to read them. Anyone of these would fine in addition to the secular liberal humanistic worldview the schools foist and impose on them. Which, by the way, is as much a religion as they are. All schools teach religion, which I define as a worldview, and for schools and courts to pretend otherwise is unfair and a fraud.
The Court’s are far from upholding upholding some standard of neutrality. Actually they are priviliging a particular religion, the secular humanist and enlightment worldview and it is time we started to call them on it.
Of course there is an obvious problem. A truly worldview neutral school would not be able to teach anything at all.
Not a problem in the excellent RC schools my children have attended! The only negative is that they now have a positive dislike for the RC because they are not allowed to partake of communion at the weekly mass. Still, at my son’s high school graduation it was nice not to have to worry about the ACLU suing over a student prayer or some such insanity, as has happened in several of the public high schools in the area (and this in the South!). Instead, there was a full mass for all of the graduates and guests with three priests taking part, a lovely choir, and valedictorian’s and saluditorian’s speaches full of the centrality of their faith in Jesus Christ.
Hey, Virgil! For once we are in agreement. In a discussion on prayer in schools I had with the director of a small Christian school in Wyoming, I pretty well stumped him with “Ok, you want prayer in schools. Here in Wyoming we have the Lakota, and nearby in Utah we have the Mormons in the majority. Under the law, their prayers would have to be included as well. Are you ready to accept them as well as yours in the classroom?” He had to admit he wasn’t.
If the Bible is allowed, so would every other text for every other religious group.
On the other hand, Thomas Jefferson did say that the purpose of public education in the U.S. was to enable students to ‘read and interpret their Testaments’ (i.e., Bibles).
But I don’t want it done now with public funds (especially since Christianity is so much out of favor with the education community), and I castigate the ACLU for not objecting to the Islamic Public School! They should be all over that one!
P.S., my wife reminded me, it was her idea in the discussion with the school director, not mine! (sheepish grin).
Remember the bumper sticker:
“As long as there are tests, there will always be prayer in school!”