AS someone who has frequently complained to hotel managers about Gideons Bibles in the rooms I have occupied – “remove it now, or I will clog up the bog with the thing” usually did the trick – I was delighted to learn today that the American Civil Liberties Union has warned a school district in Ohio that it will take legal action if administrators don’t stop Christian busybodies from handing the Bibles to students during class time.
Fifth grade students at Findlay’s five elementary schools in March were allowed to leave class and escorted to sidewalks where they were given a Gideon Bible.
“The school crossed the line,” said Carrie Davis, an ACLU attorney.
The district’s school board is now reviewing its policies on the distribution of materials from community groups, said Findlay Superintendent Dean Wittwer. “The Bible handout has been going on for years,” he said.
Gideons International is a group of Christian men who give out Bibles to students, prisoners, soldiers and others. It says it has distributed 1.3 billion Scriptures worldwide since 1908.
Christine Link, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio, said that students and parents who want information about a particular religion should do it outside of school time.
The school cannot be involved in sacrificing classroom time to help them hand out the Bibles.
Things have changed since the days I was compelled to complain about hotel Bibles. Many hotels have now ditched them, fearing that their presence might lead to demands that other “holy” books be placed in or on bedside cabinets. So it would seem that purveyors of the Bibles are now targeting children.
The decline of the hotel Bible was roundly condemned by Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the Christian Radio show, the Albert Mohler Programme.
This is sad, but it is also a sign of the times. Gladly, not all chains and hotels have followed this example. The fact is that many persons have come to faith in Jesus Christ by reading a Bible supplied to their hotel room by the Gideons. Many others have turned to the Bible when in crisis. Some have even decided against suicide when they read from the Gideon’s Bible. Are they now to look for salvation and solace from an iPod docking station or a goldfish?
The iPod and goldfish references were gleaned from an article in Newsweek:
In the rooms of Manhattan’s trendy Soho Grand Hotel guests can enjoy an eclectic selection of underground music, iPod docking stations, flat-screen TVs and even the living company of a complimentary goldfish. But, alas, the word of God is nowhere to be found. Unlike traditional hotels, the 10-year-old boutique has never put Bibles in its guest rooms, because ’society evolves’, says hotel spokeswoman Lori DeBlois. Providing Bibles would mean the hotel ‘would have to take care of every guest’s belief’.
What might be surprising to many Americans is that the Bible-free room isn’t a development just in hip New York City hotels. Across the country upscale accommodations are doing away with the Bible as a standard room amenity. And in its stead have arrived a slew of “lifestyle” products that cater to a younger, hipper (and presumably less religious) clientele. Since 2001 the number of luxury hotels with religious materials in the rooms has dropped by 18 percent, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
The Nashville-based Gideons International, which has distributed copies of the Christian scripture to hotels since 1908, declined to comment on this trend.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
