Gideons arrested for "trespassing" on public sidewalk

From WorldNetDaily...

Two men who are members of Gideons International, the Christian organization that is famous for, among other ministries, placing Bibles in motels and giving them to children, have been arrested after trying to hand out Bibles on a public sidewalk in Florida, according to a law firm....

The arrest happened Jan. 19, when Mirto and Simpson were on the sidewalk outside of Key Largo School in Key Largo, Fla., and were distributing copies of the Bible to those interested.

"Neither man entered school grounds," the law firm said. "After the school's principal called police, a Monroe County sheriff's officer asked the men to leave immediately or face trespassing charges. As the men prepared to leave, the officer decided to arrest both individuals."...

"Officials cannot use fear of arrest as a means of bullying law-abiding Christians into silence," [Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel David] Cortman said. "These men broke no laws when they decided to communicate their message on a public sidewalk."

Meanwhile the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that allowed taxpayer funded schools to indoctrinate children into the religion of Islam. But then again the Gideons never publicly sawed anyone's head off (privately either) so I guess the policy is to respect only those religions that have a reputation for threatening people with violence, like Islam and Atheism (the official religion of Communist China and the USSR, which together murdered hundreds, upon hundreds of millions of innocent men, women and children)

Since I don't really see the Gideons wanting to gain "acceptance" the Moslem way (flying planes into buildings, murdering bystanders when they "feel" their religion is being insulted) I suppose they'll have to get used to being arrested for obeying the law.

Posted by Danny Carlton at February 8, 2007 6:53 AM