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Maybe you recall the ruckus raised last May, when some folks up in Frisco got upset with the fact the school district allowed for the dissemination of Gideon bibles on campuses. And no doubt you recall what happened a year earlier, when some Jewish kids in Plano ISD were taunted with bibles and asked, like, won’t you burn and stuff if you come in contact with the New Testament? (Silly — it doesn’t burn, but it does sting a little.) Which more or less brings us up to speed concerning the ACLU of Texas report released today: Distribution of Gideons Bibles in Texas Public Schools: Impact on Students’ Religious Liberty, which actually takes a look at 10 Texas districts.
The report, in short, recounts the events leading to the distribution of the bibles (“The Gideons encouraged Frisco ISD’s Director of Communications to keep their plan to distribute Bibles on 13 district campuses a secret from principals until the day before the distribution, resulting in increased disruption and negative media attention for the district”) and reminds school districts to enforce their own policies. And it’s full of anecdotes, such as this one:
Parents also complained that so many Bibles were distributed in Plano ISD that they eventually became a distraction for the students, which included using Bibles as projectiles and as props to harass Jewish classmates. One parent complained that her child, a Christian student at Vines High School, was upset when students began throwing the Bibles at one another, tearing them, and using pages from a Bible to roll a joint.
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