Posted on 01/10/2008 4:38:55 AM PST by Stoat
ST. LOUIS — A rural school district's long-standing practice of allowing the distribution of Bibles to grade school students is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.
An attorney for the southeastern Missouri school district said Wednesday he will appeal the judge's injunction against the practice.
For more than three decades, the South Iron School District in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis in the heart of the Bible Belt, allowed representatives of Gideons International to give away Bibles in fifth-grade classrooms.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit two years ago on behalf of four sets of parents. In August, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary injunction against the practice.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If a hotel chain places Gideon Bibles in their rooms and I don’t like it, I can not patronize that hotel chain. OTOH, if I do like it, then I can choose them over everyone else.
The problem is that it’s mandatory for the kids to be in school.
As others have pointed out, how much of a zoo would the schools become if every single group wanted to come to school and pass stuff out? What’s done in school, on school time, should be school related and part of the approved curriculum.
And I’d be just fine if every taxpayer with children was fully subsidized with a voucher for their kids up to the amount the school was going to spend on the kid and then allowed to choose the private school of their choice.
Believe me, there is nothing watered down about the Word of God. It is absolutely perfect and complete in every respect which is noted over and over again in the Bible.
Many of the NT’s and Bibles handed out by the Gideons don’t contain the Plan of Salvation. The one that does for certain is the Personal Worker’s Testament which is handed out by Gideons and used for personal one on one evangelism. It is very similar to the school NT but instead of red it is brown.
Believe me there is no watering down just the omission of a man-made tool to aid in personal evangelism. There’s nothing sneaky about standing in front of a classroom and sharing the gospel before distributing the NT’s. The Gideons’ like the classroom distributions because they have a chance to speak to the kids and tell them what it is they’re handing out and the importance of the Bible. THey’ve attempted to tailor their approach so as to get into as many classrooms and get the widest hearing possible.
In many, many foreign classrooms the demand for Bibles can’t be met. Over 50mm are distributed overseas every year and it has become the primary reader in many schools around the globe. THose school officials are begging the Gideon’s for school distributions.
And you'd be wrong (well, no firecrackers---those aren't idea-generating materials).
"Children are in school to learn the 3 R’s. We don’t need to open up the place to anything anybody wants to do as long as it isn’t done with tax money.
That may have been true, once upon a time--it is no longer so. The schools themselves have become "organs of liberal propaganda"---WITH taxpayer funding. I'd rather see a level playing field for all ideas.
"Your argument is unworkable."
Wrong--it's perfectly workable. Costs zero.
Federalism is a fine concept until someone talks about removing federal money. I think private schools can do what they like. But public schools because they accept public money are responsible to the public. I think if this goes forward you would also see a flood of lawsuits from every conceivable group wanting the “right” to propagandize children regardless of what local school boards wanted or didn’t want. And those local schools would go down under the weight of so many lawsuits. If this is such an important issue, parents would band together and do this under totally private money and not insist they be allowed to do it using public money (as in the case in the public schools). It’s just short-sighted to draw a line in the sand to make sure public school children have Bibles.
Believe me, my friend. Someone would try to make that case and worse and it would cost local school boards hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
I agree with you totally about public financed propaganda and I don't want my children harassed by private financed propaganda on public property either. Your cited wrongs don't make another wrong, right.
I still have mine dated 1967.
I was a member of a Gideon's camp in Washington State. The school district said we could not use the sidewalk where the buses waited to pick up students. One of our members who was a local attorney called the school district the morning of the distribution and informed them that we would be distributing from that public sidewalk as was our constitutional right. As a courtesy, we notified the local police of our intentions. The attorney informed the school that any interference with the exercise of our constitutional rights would result in a lawsuit. The bluster worked and everything went off without incident. The Gideons have been distributing from that sidewalk ever since.
Can someone explain to me by what legal basis a Federal judge has jurisdiction over a state school over matters of religious expression? Has Congress passed a law? Has the 8th Circuit ever heard of the 10th Amendment?
All government, on EVERY level, needs to get out of education.
Even if government indoctrination camp districts were as small as a suburban subdivision there would still be problems with the voting mob violating freedom of conscience and every provision in the First Amendment.
I’ve heard of other school’s attempting what you described in Washington State. The outcome is always the same, the local Gideon’s call the school’s bluff and the sidewalk distribution goes on.
Sidewalk distributions are also done by Gideons on many college campuses around the country. I’ve seen them on the MU campus and I’ve been involved in distributions on the KU and other campuses.
Yes, of course! All schools must be gatekeepers! If they weren’t chaos would reign. And,,,this gate keeping is never religiously neutral in content or consequences. It can’t be. It is axiomatic.
So...NO matter what this government school decides it will establish the religious worldview of its favored citizen groups, and undermine and destroy the religious traditions of others. There is NO neutral action that this school can take. Impossible!
But the court won’t address this issue. It will narrowly rule as always.
How would parents feel if they found NAMBLA propaganda, Satanic literature, Muslim recruitment material?
Solution: Get government OUT of the education business. What is needed is complete separation of school and state on EVERY government level. ( federal, state, and local!)
Seems logical to me
There are many parents who don’t want their kids harassed by the Secular Humanist, atheistic, agnostic, pro-socialistic, anti-Judeo Christian propaganda found every minute of every day in their kid’s government indoctrination camp!
Yet, if these parents refuse to cooperate, armed police will soon be at the door. Remember! Behind every government school teacher and government employee is a policeman with a gun on the hip! ( Real bullets in that gun!)
Government schools are an offense against freedom of conscience and are a First Amendment nightmare!
Scrubbing the government indoctrination camp environment free of Christianity is NOT religiously neutral. There is NO such thing as a religiously neutral vacuum. When Christianity is removed **something** is sucked into its place. Some other religious worldview is favor and established by the government school.
Solution: Complete separation of SCHOOL and state.
Wouldn't it be nice if it were reading, writing and arithmetic?
There are many homeschoolers and parents using private schools that would disagree with you.
Just look at the stats. 85% of Christian kids who attend government schools have abandoned the faith within 2 years of graduating from government school. More than 90% of homeschoolers remain active.
Sending your kid to a government indoctrination camp has consequences. Negative consequences!
What you fail to understand is that the equivalent of "Mao's Little Red Book" and "NAMBLA" are ALREADY in your children's school materials courtesy of the National Education Association, whose leadership is a wholly owned subsidiary of the leftist agenda. They're getting it TODAY, as you sit in ignorant bliss. Explain to me now "NAMBLA" is significantly different from "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered"--which is ALREADY BEING TAUGHT, and WITH your tax dollars.
My "wrong" is the only approach that will "right" the situation. It's called "freedom of speech", a concept once understood by all Americans, and today understood by virtually none.
I have.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States
The privilege or immunity in question here is an immunity against Congress' establishment of religion. Again, Congress was not involved. If you take a closer look at Amendment I, you will see that the only right granted is an immunity against Congress.
When it comes to religious, cultural, and political freedom of conscience government indoctrination centers are an abomination! Always have been, are now, and always will be.
Get RID of them! ASAP!
The more fools they. Their children are already exposed to those things just by virtue of the way our society is today. The thing home schooling DOES do is assure that the countervailing point of view is not excluded.
What I propose for the public schools would re-introduce SOME measure of viewpoints deliberately excluded in favor of teaching socialism and the "queer agenda".
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Don’t be surprised then when NAMBLA, and Satanic groups start standing on the sidewalk wanting to hand out literature to the government captive children as they are released from their day prison ( mis-named “school”)
Solution: Get rid of government schooling.
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