
A Colorado school district that allowed Gideon Bibles to be distributed to students wants to remove religion from its schools after it was forced to also make atheist and Satanic literature available.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) explained earlier this month that it had asked the Delta County School District to begin handing out "freethought materials" after the district refused to stop distributing Bibles to students.
"The School District is not required to maintain this open forum and is free to close it rather than allow FFRF to distribute materials," FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel wrote in a March 3 letter to the Delta County School District. "We do not think schools should be a battleground for religious ideas. But when schools allow the Gideons to prey on children, their message of eternal damnation for any who don't believe in their God must be countered."
KJCT reported this week that the district would begin distributing atheist and satanic literature in high schools and middle schools beginning on April 1.
District officials said that existing policies prohibited discrimination against groups unless the material is obscene, promotes violence or advertises a product.
“The policy says we cannot discriminate what is handed out, we just have to follow the process,” Assistant Superintendent Kurt Clay told KJCT.
According to KJCT, the district has begun the process of revising its policy to remove all religious materials from schools while allowing students to receive other beneficial literature.
Watch the video below from KJCT, broadcast March 24, 2016.