FINDLAY, Ohio (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has told a school district it will take legal action if administrators don't stop a group from handing out Bibles to students during class time.
Fifth grade students at the city's five elementary schools in March were allowed to leave class and escorted to sidewalks along the schools where they were given a Gideon Bible.
"The school crossed the line," said Carrie Davis, an ACLU attorney.
The district's school board is now reviewing its policies on the distribution of materials from community groups, said Findlay Superintendent Dean Wittwer. The Bible handout has been going on for years, he said.
Gideons International is a group of Christian men who give out Bibles to students, prisoners, soldiers and others. It says it has distributed 1.3 billion Scriptures worldwide since 1908.
Christine Link, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio, said that students and parents who want information about a particular religion should do it outside of school time.
"The school cannot be involved in sacrificing classroom time to help them hand out the Bibles," she said.
Chris Brooks, principal of Bigelow Hill Elementary School in Findlay, said the Gideons have distributed a palm-sized booklet that contains the New Testament, Proverbs, and Psalms.
"You've got to look at the context of the community," Brooks said. "This is a Christian community. I'm not saying everybody is, but that's where Findlay is."
Students at the school are told it is up to them whether they want a Bible.
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Comments
In posting these excerpts I am not saying that I agree with the religious views of the "founding fathers" only that the modern day idea that the United States was somehow founded as a quote Christian nation is a myth. If one further researches the other "founding fahters" you find that Deism was very strong and even where there was not antithety to organized religion they were not in any way evangelical Christians. There were Quakers and Calvinists and Congregaitionaliists and Unitarians. IN FACT the hallmark of this collection of great minds and courageous hearts in relation to religion was number one their tolerance of the right of each man to worship as he saw fit or not at all and their seperation of their religious faith from their political acts and the development of government.
Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestos encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the war of Independence:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
From:
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9 (Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY)
John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"
It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
From:
The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814
Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, said:"I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac" and wrote:
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."
From:
Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History by Fawn M. Brodie, p. 453 (1974, W.W) Norton and Co. Inc. New York, NY) Quoting a letter by TJ to Alexander Smyth Jan 17, 1825, and Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams, July 5, 1814.
James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
From:
The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43 (1979, McGraw-Hill Co. New York, NY) quoting a letter by JM to William Bradford April 1, 1774, and James Madison, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Joseph Gardner, p. 93, (1974, Newsweek, New York, NY) Quoting Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by JM, June 1785
Ethan Allen, whose capture of Fort Ticonderoga while commanding the Green Mountain Boys helped inspire Congress and the country to pursue the War of Independence, said, "That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words." In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally "denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian." When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the judge asked him if he promised "to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God." Allen refused to answer until the judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those "written in the great book of nature."
From:
Religion of the American Enlightenment by G. Adolph Koch, p. 40 (1968, Thomas Crowell Co., New York, NY.) quoting preface and p. 352 of Reason, the Only Oracle of Man and A Sense of History compiled by American Heritage Press Inc., p. 103 (1985, American Heritage Press, Inc., New York, NY.)
regarding the founding fathers and foundation of our country stuff. To be historically accurate I have a their statements on the matter in their own words.
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.
From:
Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404, (1972, Newsweek, New York, NY) quoting letter by BF to Exra Stiles March 9, 1970.
If they give out the new testament, they might as well give out the koran, the hebrew bible, and all the rest of 'em.
xizwyck
"That the Founding Fathers were very clear that Christianity needed to be the base of all education "
Where in the US constitutuion is it written? The founding fathers put in the constitution that religion not be part of government.
Come judgment day, it's going to be a wake up call for those who reflect and think, "Man! All the time, the truth was in that book!"
Can someone remind the ACLU that the first public school reading primers were based upon the Bible? That the Founding Fathers were very clear that Christianity needed to be the base of all education or that the morality of our children would be lost?
Wow this is the first time I have ever been flagged. Since nothing in the blog was inherently offensive, abusive ,etc,etc, I can only conclude that JC could not stand having it pointed out that he arrogantly asssigned himself for the entire public of the country without asking if we all agreed with him. Or maybe it was the pointing out the weakness of a debater who can only win an argument when he is allowed to speak for both sides.
How did the school cross the line? To me it did not promote any specific religion. The ACLU has done some good, however they go too far. At the same time I believe there needs to be a balance-if given full riegns christians would go too far---History proves that. The pendulum is never in the middle always one side or the other.
Hbluez, felt the need to just correct a factual misstatement in your blog. students are allowed to pray in school. In fact the very same 1st ammendment that prevents school administrators and teachers etc. from inculcating religion into the communities children also protects the children from being prevented or obstructed from praying (or reading the bible, etc.) in school. My children were always able to pray in school without any obstruction. What they could not and did not attempt to do was to impose their religious views on others nor to have the state in the form of school officials require other students to conform to their/our beliefs. It is not secularism but rather the right to religious freedom that makes what this school did wrong.
J.Q. Public: Mr. ACLU, why is your organization quiet about separation of Church and State when Islam is being taught in public schools, such as we have seen in California and other states?
Mr. ACLU: We are working very hard protecting and defending your civil liberties to worry about the Peaceful agenda of Islam.
J.Q. Public: Can you give us a few examples?
Mr. ACLU: Sure. In one case, we worked very hard threatening to sue the Newton County (Georgia) School board to force it to remove "Christmas" from school calendars. The school board complied, changing "Christmas Break" to "Winter Break." We could not allow this, obviously for brainwashing children into believing that they must have a moral conscious, you know, obeying their parents and religious stuff like that.
J.Q. Public: Can you give us any more examples:
Mr. ACLU: Sure, we have many. We constantly are laboring in the courts threatening lawsuits against states and cities that allow displays of the Ten Commandments on public grounds and in public buildings. In recent years, we have filed suits against the cities of Ringold, Ga., Duluth, Minn., and Providence, R.I. We could not allow any laws like, murder, or stealing be associated with any immoral behavior outlined in Church. This would be a clear violation of Church and State.
J.Q. Public: Anymore?
Mr. ACLU: Absolutely. We were working tirelessly limiting religious music at school functions following a lawsuit. One high-school concert was cancelled because the program included songs containing religious references. We feel it better that the rock music that melts your brains would be much better for today's youth.
J.Q. Public: Anymore examples of how you are defending our civil liberties?
Mr. ACLU: You know it. We have file cabinets full of case after case. Lately, we are hard at work lobbying the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a lower court decision declaring unconstitutional the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has so far refused to follow our guidance though. Don't worry though, we're still working on this.
J.Q. Public. Mr. ACLU, thank you for this interview. Do you have anything further you would like to say to the readers?
Mr. ACLU: Yes, in fact. We at the ACLU are going to continue to tirelessly and effortlessly work to protect your civil liberties. This is why we are not going to insult, er, I mean engage Islam, as this appears to be nothing but a peaceful movement and governmental structure, moreso than a religion.
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Jesus said: "So then, you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:20)