This is old news, but 2 weeks ago a local public school board here in Ontario finally ended the practice of distributing Gideon Bibles to students.
It should have been a no-brainer. Nothing prevents parents who want Bibles for their own kids from buying them, or asking the Gideons to supply a copy for free. Nothing prevents students from reading the Christian bible in their school library or elsewhere. But the local school board has no business distributing the holy book for one particular religion in the exclusion of all other religions.
How did some local Christians respond? "Several trustees received threats and hate mail, much of it anti-immigrant." Yes, that's exactly what Jesus would have wanted, I suppose.
Kudos to members of the local Christian community who spoke up against the hate.
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Keatsway public school in Waterloo would have the Gideons in every year to give out Bibles. I wanted to object but my kids begged me not too. They didn't want to be centered out and ridiculed by other kids. they said they would just go up and get a bible so they wouldn't stand out in front of the other kids as different.
I took some pleasure in throwing it in the trash afterwords. I feel bad now that I did not stand up to this abuse. I didn't want to hurt my kids.
It's a pity that so many of the faithful cannot seem to live by the tenets of their beliefs.
Happily, however, it is possible. Jewish and Muslim communities responded wonderfully to an atheist advertising campaign - with bemusement, and an open commitment to free speech.
I have written more about both of these occurrences, for anyone interested in more details.
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