Controversy surrounding Bible distribution in North Carolina’s Buncombe County public schoolsturned into a debate yesterday over proposed new policy requiring school officials to maintain religious neutrality in their official positions. Sounds pretty fair and appropriate, right?
[A] number of people at the Thursday meeting criticized the policy, and questioned the need for it. A number of the speakers identified themselves as Christians and several local pastors spoke.
“That is what brings us here tonight, the tyranny of a few seeking to force its will on the majority,” Pastor H.D. Scoggins told board members.
James Ponder, who described himself as a Baptist preacher, urged the board to continue to allow the Gideons International to leave Bibles at schools.
“We need to make sure they (students) have truth,” Ponder said.
Sharing religious truth is not the role of public schools or the government. Each student – like each family – is entitled to their own religious truth, not subject to the coercion of the State, or a majority vote of their fellow citizens. Why is this so difficult?
