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Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has sent a letter to public school superintendents across the state vowing to defend religious freedom amid “veiled legal threats” over the distribution of Bibles on campus.
“Few things are as sacred and as fundamental to Oklahomans as the constitutional rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion,” Pruitt wrote Tuesday. “It is a challenging time in our country for those who believe in religious liberty. Our religious freedoms are under constant attack from a variety of groups who seek to undermine our constitutional rights and threaten our founding principles.”
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Aaron Cooper, a spokesman, said Pruitt’s office is trying to determine the extent of contact between the Freedom From Religion Foundation and similar groups and Oklahoma school districts. From that information, legal training on the topic of religious freedom will be developed for public school officials, he said.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, or FFRF, responded Wednesday, sending Pruitt a letter saying they were "concerned about this misleading if not irresponsible advice."
"It is obviously far easier for an Oklahoma student to get a bible than literature criticizing the bible, which FFRF will seek to pass out in every public school forum that is opened under your offer. If the goal of the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office is to allow public schools to be used to distribute atheist messages, then this is a brilliant idea," wrote foundation attorney Andrew Seidel. "FFRF prefers that public schools focus on education rather than serve as a venue for divisive religious debates.
"Your letter was either grossly misinformed on both the facts and law—indeed recklessly misinformed given that school districts might heed your advice and open themselves up to serious legal and financial liability—or it was a transparent attempt to pander to people’s religious sensibilities for political gain."
Seidel told the Tulsa World his organization wrote to 26 Oklahoma school districts in February after receiving complaints that Jamison Faught, the adult son of state Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, had been working with Gideons International to distribute Bibles to public school students in numerous districts.
“Every court that looks at this says Bible distributions in the public schools are unconstitutional. The AG’s bluster is just that — bluster. A bunch of hot air,” Seidel said.
“In some cases, schools can have an open forum where the school designates time for anybody to exercise their First Amendment free speech rights. But what usually happens is when we ask to participate or the Satanic Temple or Muslims ask to participate, the open forum is closed,” he continued. “Open forums are meant to privilege the religious majority.”
Seidel said his organization cobbled together its mail distribution list of districts — primarily in northeastern Oklahoma — based on Jamison Faught’s Facebook posts in which he claimed to have passed out Bibles to fifth-graders in Checotah, Eufaula and Stidham.
In response to a comment by one of his Facebook friends about the legality of what he had done, Faught wrote: “Last several years, we’ve been able to do it at every school in McIntosh, Okmulgee and Okfuskee counties except one or two. Last year, the Checotah principal not only personally took us to each classroom, but he helped us hand them out!”
The Tulsa World sought comment from Faught on Tuesday, but he referred questions to Gideons International, which had already closed for the day. Faught is identified on his LinkedIn page as a carpet cleaner, political activist and author of a blog, MuskogeePolitico.com.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that works to protect the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. Seidel said the group doesn’t go looking for trouble; its five attorneys simply respond to complaints, which have numbered more than 5,000 in the last two years alone.
“If the AG is interested in protecting constitutional freedoms, he needs to protect every public school parent’s right to have an education for their child that is free from proselytizing,” Seidel said. “Private religious groups do not get to use the machinery of the state to promote their message.”
In his letter to superintendents, Pruitt said that contrary to claims made by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, schools can lawfully allow the dissemination of religious literature on campus.
“The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed lawsuits around the country to aggressively advance its agenda,” Pruitt said. “The group has contacted more than one Oklahoma school with misrepresentations regarding the law, including the false categorical assertion that the law prohibits distribution of religious literature in public schools.”
Seidel told the Tulsa World that legal action in the situation is a “possibility” but that “public schools are strapped enough and we don’t want to contribute to that.”
He said public school educators need to be better informed about the laws because groups such as Gideons International “train” their members to seek out low-level, site-based school employees in hopes of avoiding opposition or interference by better-informed administrators.
Seidel said he was satisfied with the advice many of the Oklahoma public schools he contacted had received from Brian Drummond, an attorney at the Tulsa law firm Rosenstein Fist & Ringgold, which represents about 350 school districts and CareerTech centers.
“He seems to be giving them clear advice on what the law says, unmotivated by politics,” Seidel said.
Contacted by the Tulsa World, Drummond said he and his partners had been contacted by many clients about the letters and that they advised them about the “very specific” rules for open forums for the distribution of religious materials established in federal case law.
He said it’s such a tricky business that the vast majority of school districts choose to avoid the situation altogether as a matter of policy.
“Groups can come in 30 minutes before students can come in and set up a table with materials,” Drummond said. “This can only be done at secondary schools grades 7 and up; there is no legal way to pass this stuff out to elementary school students.”
“They can have a sign at the table announcing ‘free Bibles’ or something like that, and typically, the school puts up a sign saying it is not affiliated with the school. The school or staff cannot make any kind of announcement, and no one can sit at the table.
“At end of the day, after students have left, they come in and pick up whatever Bibles or other religious materials are left.”
Drummond said it is imperative for schools to understand that “if you open it up for the Gideons, you open it up for any religious group or nonreligious group to come in and do this.”
“A lot of schools don’t allow any distribution because they don’t want to deal with it one way or the other,” he said.
