An Illinois school district has reportedly threatened a Christian with arrest should the individual step on school grounds to distribute Bibles.
The infamous FFRF received word from the school district that they would act if the previously mentioned Christian comes on campus. The individual was previously seen distributing Bibles on the street nearby.
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) initially sent a letter complaining that the school principal, Lila McKeown, included references to Christianity and/or Scripture in flyers that are distributed at staff meetings. However, the letter further claims that the principal allowed an individual to distribute Bibles to students.
The La Harpe Community School District later responded to the letter in support of the FFRF and subsequently threatened the Christian individual with arrest.
“When Principal McKeown regularly promotes Christianity to teachers, and distributes passages from the Bible at official district-sponsored events, employees will conclude that their government employer is endorsing religion over non-religion and Christianity over all faiths,” the correspondence read.
“If the district was unaware that this Bible distribution was taking place, we request that the district take action and instruct all teachers that they may not permit third parties to distribute religious literature to students on school property during the school day or while students are entering or leaving the building,” FFRF wrote.
[embeddoc url=”https://ffrf.org/images/LaHarpeCommunitySchoolDistrict347ILprincipalpromotingreligion.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google”]
The FFRF is well known for going after people of faith who are acting upon their First Amendment rights on governmental property.
The letter claims that the school is endorsing Christianity, however, at many other schools across the nation, Islam is taught to students without rebuttal from the FFRF. Instead, it would appear as though the FFRF is only after one Religion, Christianity.
According to the letter, the FFRF’s primary concern was over the individual who was distributing Bibles. However, the individual was allegedly unaware that they were on school property, being that they were on the street, and not actually within the campus.
In response to the FFRF’s complaint, an attorney for the school district responded to the organization’s letter in full support.
“This individual was warned that law enforcement would be called should he or any affiliated persons come onto the school district campus for the purpose of distributing Bibles to students,” the letter to FFRF read.
