Principal Annette Martinson
Posted on 02/08/2007 1:42:46 AM PST by Robert Drobot
Two men who are members of Gideons International, the Christian organization that is famous for, among other ministries, placing Bibles in motels and giving them to children, have been arrested after trying to hand out Bibles on a public sidewalk in Florida, according to a law firm.
Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund have confirmed they will be representing Anthony Mirto and Ernest Simpson, who were arrested, booked into jail and charged with trespassing.
Jeremy Tedesco, one of the ADF's lawyers on the case, confirmed to WND that the organization's clients were on a public sidewalk when they were handing out Bibles and school officials summoned police.
"The First Amendment protects the right to engage in religious speech on a public sidewalk," ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman said. "Members of the Gideons have been highly respected for decades as peaceful providers of free Bibles to those who want them."
Principal Annette Martinson
The arrest happened Jan. 19, when Mirto and Simpson were on the sidewalk outside of Key Largo School in Key Largo, Fla., and were distributing copies of the Bible to those interested.
Monroe County Sheriff Richard Roth
"Neither man entered school grounds," the law firm said. "After the school's principal called police, a Monroe County sheriff's officer asked the men to leave immediately or face trespassing charges. As the men prepared to leave, the officer decided to arrest both individuals."
A hearing is scheduled March 5 in Monroe County Court in the cases, and ADF attorneys are preparing motions to dismiss the charges.
"Officials cannot use fear of arrest as a means of bullying law-abiding Christians into silence," Cortman said. "These men broke no laws when they decided to communicate their message on a public sidewalk."
Tedesco noted that sometimes school officials have a misconception about whether they can control activities on school grounds and adjacent public sidewalks. But the First Amendment does provide a protection for speech on those parcels of ground that are public, he said.
"There's no reason why they should be put in jail," he said.
The ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the truth, through strategy, training, funding and litigation.
The Gideons, a group founded in the late 1800s, has as its "sole purpose" the goal "to win men, women, boys and girls to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through association for service, personal testimony, and distributing the Bible in the human traffic lanes and streams of everyday life."
Members of the Gideons, who pay their own expenses so 100 percent of the donations to the group go toward Bible purchases and distributions, have placed the Bible in 181 nations in 82 different languages over the years.
The organization focuses on hotels and motels, hospitals and nursing homes, schools, colleges and universities, the military and law enforcement and prisons and jails.
"The demand for Scriptures in these areas far exceeds our supplies that we are able to purchase through our donations. Much more could be done – if funds were available. However, we are placing and distributing more than 1 million copies of the Word of God, at no cost, every seven days in these areas…" the group said.
The organization only gives away the Bibles with the Gideon logo on the covers, but plain Bibles are available for consumers to purchase at its distribution center at P.O. Box 140800, Nashville, Tenn., 37214-0800. Information about the products is available on the group's website.
The Gideons serve as an extended missionary arm of the Christian church and are the oldest Christian business and professional men's association in the United States.
Thank you so much for your post. It is so well grounded in matters of importance among the colonies. Scripture. Who would dare argue this country was not founded on Christian principles in light of the facts you offer. God bless you.
Check the date when our first Congress instructed the Commerce Committee to purchase 20,000 Bibles. *Goosebumps*
DOES a public sidewalk exist, where the two God fearing men were standing?
Finally you adress me. Fear whatever or whomever you wish! A law is a law. If we did not have them , we would live in chaos. I would like to see how long your behind would last in a lawless country. They would laugh at you right before they executed you.
It is sad day when media driven hype about child molesters is used as a pretext to suppress God given rights recognized in our Constitution. In fact, the problem of sexual perversion has no doubt been exacerbated by the expulsion of the Christian faith from the public arena by left wing judicial decisions, ACLU lawsuits, and other types of liberal activism. Until the 1960s, the Gideons were often permitted access to distribute New Testaments on public school campuses. Many of our social problems would be lessened if Biblical examples were exalted by the mass media, instead of the antics of human trash like Paris Hilton or the late Anna Nicole Smith.
The people who attack the freedom of religion and speech are as much enemies of America as any Taliban or Al Qaida terrorist. They are the enemy within.
Take some time to read the Constitution. It trumps the whims of some school principal and regulations passed by Democrat or RINO city councils and school boards. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Deal with it.
You throw the Word of God away in front of God. You can't get out of His view.
You are absolutely clueless. If you had a child who had even come close to being sexually molested, I'll bet you would hardly remember all of these dates in history. You would not see past your broken child. Get off your out-dated high horse and hear for the millionth time. No one came down on these men for bibles. They were asked to get off school grounds and did not. It really is that simple!
If that is not simple enough, try driving up or down US 1 anywhere in the Florida Keys at rush hour at the beginning of a school day or dismissal of a school day (assuming you are not stuck at an open draw bridge. Do it on a daily basis. You would probably ask someone hindering the process to move as well. It really is that EXTRA simple!!!
hey troll, wonder why the bibles were drawing such throngs?
go testify in the court then, troll.
We also have a little understanding of the Constitution and we don't think it is an "out-dated high horse". The Constitution trumps traffic any day. Enjoy your stay at FreeRepublic.
Something that is lacking in this matter is common sense. How anyone can equate men giving out Bibles with child molesters stretches credulity. If our society has a problem with child molesters, it is because the penalty for such crimes is insufficiently harsh. It is also because the social and cultural leaders of our society abandoned the old standards of morality and decency as "Victorian" and "repressive" and promoted amorality and permissiveness in sexual matters. Neither of these problems are corrected by stopping Gideons from distributing Bibles.
Preventing people from giving out Bibles on public property is at best an instance of brainless "zero tolerance" policy at best or a deliberate attempt to suppress freedom of speech and religion at worst.
Talk to the cops. The Principal asked the men, personally, to get off of school property and thought they were selling "bobble heads" for the super bowl. The original complainer said "Bible Heads" and Mrs. Martinson misunderstood the message relayed to her by a middle man (you just can't make that up - its almost humorous!) They assured her they would. When she left, they went right back on. Only later did she find out what was actually being passed out. Even if she actually had known, she did what was right to protect the students and to keep the darn traffic from being an even bigger mess than usual. I am sorry if the simplicity of this is too much for you. I am sure you'll come back at me with some intricate constitutional info. but this situation was just a blip on anyone's radar until extremists like you got wind of it.
All your "know it all" crap does not impress me. You were not here and do not know anyone involved. I would never presume to know anything about a situation from a stupid Internet site. Let me leave you with a term you might have to run to your history books for - duh!!
There are so many people being asked to testify your head would spin! By the way - "redneck", not so flattering, you might want to re-think that.
Not sure what you definition of personal is. I have posted no one's picture and called them names! I will leave you with just one question. Do you have any personal knowledge of the events that took place on that day? Do you know anyone involved? Have you had anyone you know be attacked personally and told they should be ashamed for something of which they had no knowledge of?
If you would read my post above, you would answer your own question. I have already stated that I would wait "for the facts to surface regarding the legal location of the Gideons", in my post 120. Come on. You can do better than that.
The suppression of individual freedom is not a "blip on the radar." As for extremists, I like to remember Barry Goldwater's line in his 1964 speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." To paraphrase Patrick Henry, if this be extremism, make the most of it.
stupid Internet site
I would rather get my information from Free Republic and World Net Daily than the Miami Herald and the local network affiliates, which regurgitate the standard liberal nonsense.
In fact, thanks to the Internet and talk radio, it has been more difficult to hide unjust actions than in the past. Were it not for such sources, the Dubai ports deal would have been passed, the Duke lacrosse players would be serving time in a heavily black North Carolina prison, Harriet Miers would be serving on the Supreme Court instead of Samuel Alito, the anti-homosexual protesters at a Philadelphia "gay rights" parade would have been sentenced to a fine and jail times, etc. There is no longer a near monopoly on public information, and local bullies may suffer from exposure than was the case in the past.
Sorry if the local honchos in Key Largo cannot get away with bullying Gideons exercising their Constitutional rights. They can cry in their martinis at the country club if they wish, but they will get no sympathy from Americans who know and will defend the principles upon which this nation was founded.
Wallace... you're in good company.
< P > Is used to make paragraphs... Paragraphs are your friend.
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