Written by Don Byrd
The Chattanooga Times Free-Press profiled one elementary school’s efforts to deal with Bible distribution given the county’s policies. Their experience raises emerging issues regarding religious neutrality and equal access in schools. Namely, may school officials allow some outside groups to distribute literature while denying religious groups the same access to children to protect chuch-state separation? Does neutrality require no promotion of religion? Or does it require the promotion of all religions?
Hamilton County’s practice is all-or-nothing when it comes to making outside materials available to students, said school board attorney Scott Bennett. If a principal allows the Boy Scouts to distribute leaflets, then the same privilege must be afforded to the Gideons, Catholic groups or Muslim groups.
“We cannot create a barrier to the distribution of religious literature that is not in place for secular literature,” Bennett said. “We have to be viewpoint-neutral.”
When it comes to distributing religious texts at elementary schools, do they?
