“The children told their parents that the Bibles were placed on a table in the hallway during regular school hours,” said Miller. “This intentional placement by the principal made the Bibles noticeable to any students in the hallway. Anyone, religious or not, can see that the purpose of this is to promote Christianity.”
No book should be banned unless it is promoting deadly things. Talk to your kids. Keep them up on truth and help them be critical thinkers.
Both the Herington superintendent and elementary principal should be removed from office for constitutionally forbidden activity.
This shows how the culture of Kansas has regressed over the past 25 - 30 years under the morally bankrupt and aggressively "Christian" leadership of Brownbach and Kobach. As he head of an educational service center serving 12 rural districts in Kansas from 1977 - 87, I worked with the Herington district. I can say without doubt that such illegal action would NOT have occurred at that time in Herington.
The principal for sure....and the Superintendent as well if he/she didn't stop the Principal's doings.
Religious people always take it personally and it's not personal. Schools and government buildings have to be neutral ground, it's the only way to be fair to everybody. It's part of the freedom of religion, no body's religion in schools or gov't buildings.
Give them bibles. And Quran. And Bhagavad Gita. And I ching. And Torah. And whatever else I've missed. All on the same shelf. For free. During class time. Let them take or not, whatever they want. Promote them all equally or not all all. Or give them nothing.
They're all historically important and the more they consume, (critically, not blindly), compare and contrast the better off they'll be. Better to encounter religion in an academic setting (where the idea is to explore and understand in context, as opposed to swallow whole), as a subject like any other, than to solely encounter it "in the wild", so to speak.
Only one religion's texts? No no no no no. Arms races between opposing groupsto pass out texts//tract s/coloring bookss/fliers/etc? No. Ignoring religion altogether? No.
Do I expect to see any significant shifts in these attitudes in my lifetime? HECK NO.
No religious texts period! Neutral means none of the above! there are more important things to do than make sure everybody's books are on the same shelf! Religion has it's place and it's not every place!
Some states, especially those in the south want to play the old "states rights" battle again. Our national Constitution beats (I refuse to use the word "trump" for anything remotely resembling positive) the individual states constitutions. FFRF is on the forefront of this battle and the Humanists are taking an example from them and starting to also go after these religious zealots.
If you want to see something scary go to the FFRF site and look at the Black Collar crime log.
Also, one little known fact is that the Jehovah's Witnesses are also against prayer and bibles in the schools. This goes against their beliefs and their bible (despite what some say there are more than one bible).
Here in Kentucky, the governor just signed a bill making it perfectly legal to teach the bible in our public schools. It isn't mandatory teaching but is being made available as an elective for students to take if they wish. Even so, it still pisses me off. Good for that Superintendent!
This Thanksgiving, my little brother asked to say a prayer so he could thank God. While half my family is somewhat spiritual, they don't go to church and never mention god. It's no small guess where he picked it up from.
It is not legal and one parent can complain and the state will have to face a court battle.
@JackPedigo it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out. So far the ACLU is concerned with how the courses will be taught. They don't want it to be "preached." But the governor has said that no other religious texts except for the bible will be taught, so it's hard to see how it won't turn into a big preaching session everyday during that particular class. The governor stated, "You could be an atheist, and you would appreciate there's a lot of wisdom in the Bible." Lol.
@Camellen School? Ugh. Sickening. I was listening to a podcast a couple weeks ago and the guest was talking about how he enrolled his daughter in a preschool, not a Christian preschool as the parents are both Atheists, and the daughter came home crying saying that she didn't want her Mom & Dad to go to hell because they didn't go to church. He promptly went to the preschool and chewed everyone out.
wow
@HSZ3399 Unfortunately, this is all too common. More and more politicians are weak and use religion as a way of appealing to certain people. Politics is getting more complicated and it is harder to satisfy the increasing diversity of constituents. All this was predicted by Zero Population Growth over 2 decades ago. One doesn't have to work at NASA to use history and basic knowledge of human workings to figure this out.
Wow what is wrong with handing out bibles in public school? Everything.
This is normally done by the Gideons. FFRF has gotten them excluded from many schools. The bibles in hotel rooms are also from the Gideons group. Therefore one can remove them or whatever and not worry about the hotel complaining.
@JackPedigo If there is a bible in my hotel room, I throw it in the trash. I assume somebody left it behind; and when I pay the cost of a hotel, I don't want proselytizing.
@BlueWave FFRF has labels that say: "warning literal belief in this book may endanger your health and life". When there is a convention they sell out.
The books are not the property of the hotel but placed there by the Gideon's group.
See my reply to BlueWave
Yay for the Humanists!
The Humanists and Freedom From Religion Foundation are 2 must go to organizations if one is truly concerned about the intrusion of religion in our society.
“Our district respects all religious beliefs and the constitutional rights of every student,” said Herington school Superintendent Ron Wilson. “We will no longer allow distribution of religious materials.”
The monthly FFRF newsletter have pages and pages with this very kind of fight and win.