US Court Backs Ban on Bible Distribution at Elementary Schools

A federal appeals court this week upheld a lower-court ruling against the distribution of Bibles to grade school students in a southern Missouri school district.

The three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis backed the decision made last year by a U.S. district judge who granted a preliminary injunction barring the South Iron R-I School District in Annapolis from "allowing distribution of Bibles to elementary school children on school property at any time during the day."

"[W]e reject the contention that the preliminary injunction is invalid because it is content-based," read the decision by the appeals court on Tuesday.

It also stated that it agreed with the district court that distributing Bibles to fifth graders in the classroom - as representatives of Gideons International have been allowed to do at South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis - "raises far graver Establishment Clause concerns than, for example, permitting outside groups to distribute religious flyers on school premises or inviting ministers to give nonsectarian prayers at graduation ceremonies."

According to Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver, however, the appeals court ruling concerns a practice no longer in place.

Staver, whose conservative law group represented the school district in their case against parents represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the district's current policy allows people or groups to distribute literature - with approval from the district - before or after school or during lunch break, but not in the classrooms.

The new policy is the subject of a pending court ruling at the district court level, he told The Associated Press, and Liberty Counsel "will vigorously defend [the policy] because we believe it's a constitutionally sound policy."

According to the Staver, the policy will provide the right to distribute literature to groups such as Gideons International, the organization whose Bible distribution sparked the current legal battle.

For years, Gideons International representatives have been giving away pocket-sized Bibles to fifth-grade classrooms at South Iron Elementary School.

Although parents of some students first raised concerns about the Bible distribution in 2005, the school board voted 4-3 that fall to allow the distribution to continue.

In February 2006, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of four sets of parents, asking that the district be stopped "from further endorsement of religion."

All four sets of parents are Christian, said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU office in St. Louis.

"Their objection is they don't want the school telling their children what their religious beliefs should be," Rothert said, according to AP. "They believe that should be done at home with the family."

Rothert said the ACLU was asking the district court to issue a permanent injunction banning the Bible distribution program.