School Bible distribution banned
Published Sept. 12, 2006
A federal judge barred an eastern Missouri school district from allowing a Christian missionary group to hand out Bibles in an elementary school.
Judge Catherine Perry ruled that the South Iron R-I School District in Annapolis, Mo., was promoting Christianity by allowing Gideons International to distribute the Bibles to fifth graders at South Iron Elementary School.
Perry's ruling, issued earlier this month by the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, requires the school district to stop allowing Gideons to distribute Bibles.
The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri. Legal director Anthony Rothert said that Bibles had been passed out at the school for "at least 10 years."
Rothert said he was happy the ruling was issued so quickly.
The Gideons International is a Christian missionary organization that frequently passes out Bibles in public areas. The Bible that is passed out includes only the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs.
Calls to the Liberty Counsel, the private organization that supplied the school district with attorneys, were not returned. South Iron R-I School District Superintendent Brad Crocker was at a meeting and could not be reached for comment.
Rothert said that the Gideons insisted that they distribute the Bibles rather than school staff and that a now-retired superintendent stopped the Bible distribution in 2001. The school board overruled that decision.
Shortly after the board's decision, at least five families contacted the ACLU. The ACLU began writing letters to the district in February 2005, but the district refused to change its policy.
"We realized they weren't going to change their position and filed the lawsuit," Rothert said.
According to minutes from the April 2006 school board meeting, President Jim Scaggs asked the board members for their feelings about the case and "the consensus was that the ACLU had no case."
Tom Mickes, an attorney for Missouri United School Insurance Cooperative — the district's insurance company — later told the board that allowing Bibles to be passed out during school hours likely violated the Missouri and U.S. Constitution.
Mickes told the board during its May 2006 meeting that the insurance agency refused to continue representing the district because allowing the Gideons to pass out Bibles was an "intentional violation" and that "board members were made aware of the law before they acted," the minutes stated.
According to minutes from that same meeting, the school board approved using district funds to defend against the ACLU suit.