Appeals court upholds ban on Bible distribution to fifth-graders

ST. LOUIS -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower-court ruling that prohibited the distribution of Bibles to grade school students in a southern Missouri school district.

At issue was a long-held practice at South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis, 60 miles west of Cape Girardeau, in which Gideons International representatives came to fifth-grade classrooms and gave away Bibles. A U.S. district judge issued a temporary injunction, and a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis agreed the classroom distribution should be prohibited.

Parents of some students first raised concerns about the Bible distribution in 2005. That fall, the school board voted 4-3 to allow the distribution to continue, even though then-superintendent Homer Lewis, at the urging of the district's insurance carrier and attorney, suggested an end to the practice. A day after the vote, the Gideons came to the school and distributed Bibles to both fifth-grade classrooms.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in February 2006 on behalf of four sets of parents, asking that the district be stopped "from further endorsement of religion."