Gideons, ACLU At Odds Over Scripture Distribution to Public School Students
by Allie Martin
August 22, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The ACLU is trying to restrict the Gideons from handing out Bibles to fifth-graders at an elementary school in Missouri. For years the superintendent of the South Iron R-1 School District in Annapolis, Missouri, has permitted various groups to present information to students at district schools. The open access policy in the district has allowed such groups as Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Union Pacific Railroad to have access to the students during classroom time. The Gideons International, which annually places and distributes more than 63 million Scriptures worldwide, has had access to schools during a study period.
Now, however, The Gideons has been singled out in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, which claims that last fall two Gideons representatives were permitted to address fifth-graders during class time and then distribute New Testaments to them -- an action the ACLU says is unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting the South Iron Schools from continuing to allow outside visitors into their classrooms for religious purposes.
Orlando-based Liberty Counsel has joined with conservative author and commentator David Limbaugh in defending South Iron against the lawsuit. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, says the attacks against the school district are unfounded.
"An open access policy under the First Amendment requires that you treat religious speech equally," Staver explains. "The ACLU may not like the idea that they have to treat religious speech equally, but the fact of the matter is the Constitution demands it. So we're now defending this ACLU lawsuit which we believe, frankly, is frivolous."
Beyond that consideration, Liberty Counsel has added motivation to be involved in the case, says the attorney. "I think it's important to stand up in this particular case because if the ACLU had its way, it would literally shut down religious speech; it would be discriminating intentionally against religious speech, whereas all the other forms of secular expression have their way in the marketplace," says Staver.
Religious viewpoints are protected under the First Amendment, adds the Liberty Counsel founder, but "the ACLU wants to silence [religious] expression. They want all this [other] information to come as a free flow to the students, but not religious information -- in this case, specifically, no Bibles," he comments. "I think it's very important for our religious freedom and certainly for our constitutional liberties to stand up against the bullies of the ACLU."
Two years ago, the ACLU was successful in shutting down The Gideons' scripture distribution in another Missouri school district. In June 2004 the Smithville R-II School District settled a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU, agreeing that it would not "aid, abet, or assist in the distribution of Bibles to school children on school premises," or "grant permission to any non-student to distribute Bibles on school premises." That lawsuit had been filed by a Catholic father of three. The court-ordered agreement was to remain in effect for as long as the man has children enrolled in Smithville schools.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
