FFRF successfully stopped Opelika City Schools in Alabama from distributing bibles at future graduations.
FFRF received a complaint from a concerned parent that large envelopes had been handed to graduates after the last graduation ceremony. Reportedly, the envelopes contained Gideon bibles among the contents.
“When a public school distributes religious literature to its students, it entangles itself with that religious message,” wrote FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Sammi Lawrence to Superintendent Farrell Seymore. “Distributing bibles needlessly alienates students who are non-Christians, including those belonging to the almost 30 percent of Americans who are not religious.”
FFRF received a letter in response from school district legal counsel Robert T. Meadows, stating that, “Gideons has been advised that no bibles will be accepted for distribution from this point forward.”