Written by Don Byrd
A Facebook post from a gleeful Bible distribution advocate may be responsible for 26 letters of complaint sent by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) to various school districts in Oklahoma. While no lawsuit has yet been filed, the letters ask school officials to end the practice of handing out Bibles to children during the school day, unless they make available to all groups the opportunity to distribute literature.
The Oklahoman has more:
[FFRF attorney Andrew] Seidel said his organization received a complaint about the Bible distributions from a person who had seen a Facebook posting by Jamison Faught in which he said he had spent the morning with fellow Gideons passing out Bibles to fifth-grade students in Checotah, Eufaula and Stidham.
“Last several years, we’ve been able to do it at every school in McIntosh, Okmulgee and Okfuskee counties except one or two,” Jamison Faught wrote on Facebook. “Last year, the Checotah principal not only personally took us to each classroom, but he helped us hand them out!”
“These allegations, if true, violate the Constitution and breach the trust between the District and parents,” Seidel wrote in a letter to Janet Blocker, superintendent of Checotah Public Schools.
School officials should leave the distribution of Bibles and other sacred religious texts to parents and houses of worship, outside of the public school day. It is not for taxpayers to facilitate or arrange for children to be accessed by Gideon’s or any other religious advocate.
