Tennessee atheists win right to distribute literature after schools give Bibles to students

An atheist group in Tennessee won the right to distribute literature at an elementary school after the school allowed the Gideons group to distribute Christian Bibles to students.

The Friendly Atheist blog reported that the Tri-State Freethinkers group in conjunction with the ACLU challenged the decision by Casey County School District Superintendent Marion Sowders to allow the Gideons to distribute copies of the New Testament at the county's three elementary schools.

The Freethinkers and the ACLU sent the school district a letter demanding equal access and, surprisingly, the request was granted.

On Friday, the group was allowed to leave copies of the book Humanism, What’s That?: A Book for Curious Kids by Helen Bennett.

As with the Gideons, actual group members were not allowed to contact students, but the books were left for interested students to pick up and peruse.

Some Christian parents expressed outrage. Carmen Foster contemplated keeping her kids home on Friday, but changed her mind.

"I work hard everyday of my life as a mother to teach my kids what we believe," she told WKYT. "If I don't have enough confidence to send them out in the world, then how strong am I with what I'm teaching them."

"Whether we like it or not. Our kids are going to go out in to this world. They are going to come across these situations. This is a good opportunity to teach them how to handle it," she said.

Watch video on this story, embedded below:

[image of young, intelligent woman in glasses via Shutterstock.com]