Judge Orders Halt To Distribution Of Bibles In Public School

ANNAPOLIS, Mo. — A rural Missouri school district’s long-standing practice of allowing the distribution of Bibles to grade school students is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.

An attorney for the school district said Wednesday he will appeal.For more than three decades, the South Iron School District in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, allowed representatives of Gideons International to give away Bibles in fifth-grade classrooms.After some parents raised concerns and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit two years ago, the district altered its policy — the Gideons and others were still welcome to distribute Bibles or other literature before or after school or during lunch break, but not in the classroom.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry on Tuesday granted a permanent injunction, ruling both practices were illegal. The district court had previously granted a temporary injunction against the classroom distribution, a ruling upheld in August by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.The purpose of both practices “is the promotion of Christianity by distributing Bibles to elementary school students,” Perry wrote. “The policy has the principle or primary effect of advancing religion by conveying a message of endorsement to elementary school children.”

Good thing we still live in a theocracy. Judge denies two atheists the right to adopt - because they didn’t believe in God.

Can Atheists Be Parents?

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children’s Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple’s religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau denied the Burkes’ application. After the couple began court action, however, the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy from the Children’s Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

Last year the Burkes presented their adopted son, David, now 31, with a baby sister, Eleanor Katherine, now 17 months, whom they acquired from the same East Orange agency. Since the agency endorsed the adoption, the required final approval by a judge was expected to be pro forma. Instead, Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue.

Inestimable Privilege. In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes’ right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes’ “high moral and ethical standards,” he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that “no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.” Despite Eleanor Katherine’s tender years, he continued, “the child should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being.”

Great news! Pharmacies can now cite religious reasons for not making the ‘morning-after’ pill available to those who request it! What’s that you say? Your health/life might be in danger? Too bad! It’s the pharmacist that really matters here, not you. Just think about how the pharmacists must feel, I mean, Jesus very specifically said “Thou shalt not dispense morning-after pills to potentially pregnant women who requesteth”. Would you want to burn in hell for eternity (give or take a few days) because you gave a 14 year old girl morning-after pills? Not me, that’s for sure.

Judge: Druggists may withhold “morning-after” pill

A federal judge has suspended controversial state rules requiring pharmacies to dispense so-called “Plan B” emergency contraceptives, saying the rules appear to unconstitutionally violate pharmacists’ freedom of religion.

The rules appear to force pharmacists to choose between their own religious beliefs and their livelihood, Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the U.S. District Court in Tacoma wrote Thursday.

Some pharmacists believe the emergency contraceptive pills, also called “morning-after pills,” are tantamount to abortion because they can in some cases prevent implantation of a fertilized egg.

“Whether or not Plan B … terminates a pregnancy, to those who believe that life begins at conception, the drug is designed to terminate a life,” the judge wrote in a 27-page order granting a preliminary injunction.

Thus, Leighton said, the current rules “appear designed to impose a Hobson’s choice for the majority of pharmacists who object to Plan B: dispense a drug that ends a life as defined by their religious teachings, or leave their present positions in the state of Washington.”

Under Leighton’s order, pharmacists may now refuse to dispense the medication but must refer a patient to “the nearest” or “a nearby” source for the drug.

State officials said it was too early to say whether they would appeal.

“This is a complex issue with a complex ruling,” said Donn Moyer, a state Department of Health spokesman. “We’re certainly going to talk to our lawyers.”