The U.S. Navy has issued a directive ordering the removal of all Bibles from lodges and hotels run on U.S. Navy bases after complaints from an vehemently anti-Christian organization.
“The current direction is to remove all religious material from Navy Lodge guest rooms,” read an email to a Navy chaplain from The Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM). “For those Navy Lodges with religious materials currently in guest rooms, the Navy Lodge General Manager will contact the Installation Chaplain’s office who will provide guidance on the removal procedure disposition of these materials.”
The American Family Association who received a separate copy of the e-mail directive confirmed the e-mail’s contents.
The violently anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a complaint with the military claiming the existence of the Bibles in the hotel room meant the government was automatically endorsing the text.
Kathleen Martin, a spokesman for NEXCOM, avoided giving a direct answer to the issue when confronted by FoxNews reporter Todd Starnes.
“We looked at our policy — and realized there wasn’t a consistent policy regarding Navy Lodges,” she told Starnes. “We decided we needed to have some consistency and be consistent with the Navy.”
The Bibles were placed free by the Gideons.
An anti-Christian organization is threatening to sue the Missouri National Guard because a display of Bibles was located on a base.
The anti-Christian American Humanist Association had a lawyer send a threatening letter to the Missouri National Guard demanding the removal of a display of Gideon Bibles from the General Services Administration building in St. Louis.
The AHA claims that the Bibles in a government building “represents a clear breach of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.”
“The machinery of the U.S. military … is being used to distribute Bibles,” the letter claims. “ … The religious endorsement is particularly egregious in this case because unlike in many of the school cases where private citizens distributed the Bibles, the government is the entity distributing the Bibles here.”
The Bibles are available for someone to take if they want them but they are not given to soldiers nor are soldiers required to take them. Various courts have permitted similar placement of Bibles across the nation.
However, the anti-Christianists say the mere existence of the Bibles is coercion.
The Broward County School District has finally backed down from their ban of the Bible being read by students during “free reading” time.
The school had backed the teacher who told a student that he could not read the Bible in her classroom despite being contacted by multiple legal groups informing the district of the student’s Constitutional right to possess the Bible in the classroom and to read it when students were told to read a book of their choice.
The school then tried to say the problem was that the reading was part of the school’s “Accelerated Reader Program” time and the Bible wasn’t approved. The school was later found to have been lying because all 66 books of the Bible were approved for ARP.
Now, School Board Deputy General Counsel Marylin Batista-McNamara has informed the Liberty Institute that not only is the Bible approved to be read during the ARP time but also that staff has undergone training regarding the First Amendment rights of students.
The Liberty Institute says they will continue to monitor the situation to make sure the teacher who initiated the problems does not try to repeat their actions.
A Texas second grader was humiliated in front of her classmates when a teacher took away her Bible during reading time and told her that the Bible is inappropriate reading material.
The girl was reading the Bible during a “read to myself” session in class.
The family has asked the Liberty Institute to represent them as they deal with the school. A spokesman for L.I. said it’s ironic the teacher took the child’s Bible as the library at Hamilton Elementary contains copies of the Bible.
“So if it’s appropriate for their own library, why on Earth would it not be appropriate for their own students,” Michael Berry, senior counsel with the Liberty Institute, said to KHOU-TV.
The school district released a statement saying that during the student’s “independent reading time” that kids are required to read a book that is “just right,” meaning that most of the kids can understand the words.
The Air Force is taking another step to remove any Christian emblems from being displayed anywhere on their bases.
This time, they removed a memorial to men missing in action because the display contained a Bible.
A veteran who visited the base discovered the Missing Man Table at Patrick Air Force Base removed last week. The Missing Man Table is a remembrance of soldiers who are missing. The table consists traditionally of an inverted glass, a red rose and a Bible among other items.
When questioned on the disappearance, the Air Force admitted they removed the display because there was a Bible in it.
The Air Force replaced the display with a POW/MIA flag while they claimed to be seeking “an acceptable solution” to the controversy they created with the removal and targeting of the Christian holy book as the removal of the display.
Officials say they plan to return the display but did not say if they would allow the Bible to be returned to its rightful place in the display.
Air Force officials have banned Gideon volunteers from giving Bibles to new recruits at Maxwell Air Force Base.
Gideon’s volunteer Michael Fredenburg told Fox News they were told by base officials to “get their Bibles out.”
The public affairs officer for Military Entrance Processing Command told Fox News that the Gideon’s claim was not “entirely” true. Gaylan Johnson said that the Gideons have been banned from standing at a table and speaking with anyone who is a recruit. They will still be able to put materials on a table.
The Gideons had been meeting recruits and handing out Bibles for over a decade. Four days a week the Gideons would stand by a table, shaking the hands of those who had just enlisted and offering them a pocket-sized Bible.
Johnson told Fox that the Gideons are no longer allowed to be within the building to speak to anyone. Johnson is claiming that this is a new command-wide policy against any organization that is not a member of the Federal Government.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation is at it again. This time, they’re targeting hotels that are connected to state universities and demanding that Gideon Bibles be removed from the rooms.
“We atheists and agnostics do not appreciate paying high prices for lodging, only to find Gideon Bibles in our hotel rooms, sometimes prominently displayed,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker wrote in a statement obtained by Fox News.
The Bibles were given by the Gideons to the Lowell Center, a lodge owned by the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison.
The FFRF claimed a lodge guest was terrified by the presence of the Holy Bible in their room.
“As you may know, the mission of the Gideons is to ‘win the lost for Christ,’” the FFRF’s attorney wrote in a letter to the university. “The Gideon’s [sic] efforts to proselytize have frequently brought about conflict with non-religious persons and persons from minority faiths.”
The University of Wisconsin then immediately removed all Bibles from the rooms.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing another municipality to try and remove any trace of Christianity from any public area.
The FFRF sent a letter to Pinellas Park officials saying that the existence of the Bible on a podium inside the city council chamber means the city is endorsing Christianity over every other religion. According to Fox News, their letter cites court cases that resulted in the removal of Bibles from public facilities.
“Not only is the city council sending a message of endorsement for Christianity over other religions and nonreligion,” the letter says, “but display of this King James Bible sends a message of endorsement of one particular Christian sect over all others.”
Incoming city manager Doug Lewis says they are reviewing the FFRF’s most recent letter but they believe because the Bible was given to the city during the dedication of the building by the city’s Kiwanis Club, it’s part of the history of the building.
Georgia’s governor has issued an order reversing a Department of Natural Resources decision to remove Bibles from cabins and lodges at state parks.
Governor Nathan Deal ordered the Bibles to be returned after what he called a decision made “out of an abundance of caution to avoid potential litigation.” The Bibles were removed after a visitor complained about a Bible in their room. Continue reading →
