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.
In Alabama we use to let the Gideons folks in the school building. I bet they still do in some places of the Deep South. What is sad, is that many folks I have talkwd to in Ohio think that is a terrible thing to do.
The Principal cannot tell the Sheriff who to arrest off school grounds unless they had previously trespassed on school grounds.
Most Roman Catholics I have known would not do that(throw a Bible in the trash) they would honor and respect it. Back in 1946 or 47 the Gideons came to our classrooms. They carefully explained they were giving a small new testament to each student, but for some reason you did not want one, or if you already had one just keep your hand down. We had a choice, and that was standard practice in the public schools in those days. We had no drugs, guns, nor shooting in those days.
Separation of Church and State bump!
I would not want my children to get their hands on a non Catholic book personally. I have not directly received a bible, but have gotten some pamphlets and defintely throw them away. I don't think that is such a bad thing. I am nice about it and don't do it in front of them at all.
I hope the Gideons are planning to sue the pants off both school district and sheriff's department. They should be able to print thousands of Bibles with their settlement.
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INTREP
Agreed.
They should have been peddling dope.
Then neither the Pricipal nor the Sheriff would have cared.
I think the good sheriff is going to wish the deputy had been somewhere else tazering a motorist or something before this is over.
Coming soon to a sidewalk near you: the ciminalization of Christianity.
...or distributing condoms.
"the officer decided to arrest both individuals."
Again, the police are being used to enforce political correctness. The police are the armed extension of the political authority. The police have the power to arrest, put handcuffs on, detain, beat up, and kill a resisting citizen.
That this awful power is now being put to use in the service of enforcing political correctness (leftist thoughts) is unacceptable and disturbing.
Also, the police should be protecting citizens from crime. That they are not, is also a reflection of the wishes of the political establishment, which, being essentially leftist, actually doesn't wish to stop the "underclass" from committing crime against the "oppressor class".
I agree, though, that we are indeed one day closer to the End of the World than we were yesterday.
Please do not throw Bibles (even protestant ones with the abridged Old Testament) in the trash. Ever. It's disrespectful. I've "rescued" Bibles from the trash ... I wish I hadn't had to.
Someone may wish to GRACIOUSLY check out the story with the Sheriff's dept.
Sherrif Roth's email addy for those who'd like to question this.
rickroth@keysso.net
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