DeSoto Schools face new protest

Commercial Appeal ^ | 9/1/11 | Chris Van Tuyl

[Sybeck1]

DeSoto Schools face new protest Atheists allege Bible distribution by Gideons

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, fresh off a successful request that DeSoto County Schools stop allowing prayers before football games over the public address system, is now asking Mississippi's largest public school district to halt distribution of Bibles on school property.

In a new letter from the group to school officials, the group cites instances of Gideons International distributing materials to fifth-graders at Oak Grove Central Elementary in Hernando and DeSoto Central Elementary in Southaven.

"It's our information and understanding that DeSoto County school officials have been allowing this," said FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

"They (Gideons) typically come on early fall and sometimes they do spring -- we don't know exactly the timing -- and that is illegal. It burns me up, because the Gideons Society does this knowing there are court decisions saying they may not go into public schools."

According to the Gideons website, the organization distributed nearly 11 million Scriptures to U.S. colleges, hotels and hospitals last year, among other places. Passing out Youth Testaments is what Gaylor declares "predatory behavior."

"They target 10- and 11-year-olds," said Gaylor, "and I say, 'Pick on someone their own size.' As parents, we try so hard to teach our children not to take gifts from strangers; there they are handing out their New Testaments, and it's done in cahoots with public-school officials.

"It's a very maddening situation that we continue to deal with."

Supt. Milton Kuykendall proceeded cautiously Wednesday afternoon in commenting on the latest confrontation with the FFRF.

"We are investigating the matter," he said, "and DeSoto County school district will make a decision and issue a statement once our attorney has completed the investigation."

The demand that prayers over the public address system end prompted a grassroots reaction that resulted in the distribution of T-shirts and recitation of the Lord's Prayer before area high school games last Friday.

[Sybeck1]

Damn Yankees, stay up yonder!

[Coldwater Creek]

This is why my children went to SBEC.

I am an Evangelical born again Christian. I didn't want my children exposed to prayers, ect. that I might not agree with. public schools are not the place for Bible reading and prayer over the sound system.

[halran]

Give them condoms not Bibles!