{"id":636,"date":"2008-04-24T14:58:38","date_gmt":"2008-04-24T14:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon.php"},"modified":"2008-04-24T14:58:38","modified_gmt":"2008-04-24T14:58:38","slug":"judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon","title":{"rendered":"Judge: Gideon Bibles Don&#8217;t Belong in School"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press<\/strong><br \/>\nNew Orleans &#8211; Tangipahoa Parish public schools must stop in-school Bible giveaways to students, a federal judge ruled.<br \/>\n&#8220;Distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose&#8221; and amounts to school board promotion of Christianity, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier ruled.<br \/>\nAs requested by both sides, Barbier made a summary judgment based only on the written briefs &#8211; something judges may do only if the law is absolutely clear.<br \/>\nBut attorney Christopher M. Moody said he thinks the Tangipahoa Parish School Board is likely to ask the 5th U.S. Court of Appeal to overturn Barbier&#8217;s decision, though he hadn&#8217;t yet consulted with the board. &#8220;We think there&#8217;s a very good chance&#8221; of a reversal, he said.<br \/>\nThe American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed the suit for an anonymous family whose daughter said she felt pressured into taking a Bible even though she doesn&#8217;t believe in God. The girl was called Jane Roe and her father John Roe out of fear of retaliation by schoolmates and neighbors, the ACLU has said.<br \/>\n&#8220;Jane Roe states that she accepted the Bible because if she did not, her classmates would have &#8216;picked on&#8217; her,&#8221; Barbier wrote. &#8220;She feared they would call her &#8216;devil worshipper.'&#8221;<br \/>\nMarjorie R. Esman, executive director of the ACLU chapter, said, &#8220;A child shouldn&#8217;t have to choose between her family&#8217;s beliefs and the wishes of school administrators.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press New Orleans &#8211; Tangipahoa Parish public schools must stop in-school Bible giveaways to students, a federal judge ruled. &#8220;Distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose&#8221; and amounts to school board promotion of Christianity, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier ruled. As requested by both sides, Barbier made a summary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Judge: Gideon Bibles Don&#039;t Belong in School<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judge: Gideon Bibles Don&#039;t Belong in School\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press New Orleans &#8211; Tangipahoa Parish public schools must stop in-school Bible giveaways to students, a federal judge ruled. &#8220;Distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose&#8221; and amounts to school board promotion of Christianity, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier ruled. As requested by both sides, Barbier made a summary&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-04-24T14:58:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Judge: Gideon Bibles Don't Belong in School","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Judge: Gideon Bibles Don't Belong in School","og_description":"Associated Press New Orleans &#8211; Tangipahoa Parish public schools must stop in-school Bible giveaways to students, a federal judge ruled. &#8220;Distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose&#8221; and amounts to school board promotion of Christianity, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier ruled. As requested by both sides, Barbier made a summary&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-04-24T14:58:38+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon","name":"Judge: Gideon Bibles Don't Belong in School","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-04-24T14:58:38+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-24T14:58:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/judge-gideon-bibles-dont-belon#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Judge: Gideon Bibles Don&#8217;t Belong in School"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}