Opinion ID: 356147
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Purpose Of The Guidelines

Text: 18 An examination of the record reveals that the Bible distribution guidelines fail to reflect a secular purpose. First, on their face the guidelines, entitled Religious Books and Literature, apply solely to the distribution of religious literature, and expressly do not apply to the distribution of secular literature. 10 Moreover, after initially approving the Gideons' request to distribute Bibles in the classroom, the Board adopted its October 7, 1970 guidelines only nine days before the eventual plaintiffs ceased their numerous and unheeded complaints to the Board and brought this lawsuit. The record is also void of any indication that any other religious group ever approached the Board for distribution privileges or ever utilized the distribution system adopted by the guidelines. Accordingly, the guidelines necessarily facilitated the Gideons' efforts at distribution in the schools. 19 More significantly, the Board's pattern of conduct highlights the primarily sectarian purpose which underlies the guidelines. This is not the first attempt by the Orange County school board to accommodate religion, particularly the Gideon movement, in its public schools. In a challenge to an earlier Board authorization of Gideon Bible distribution, the Florida Second District Court of Appeals indicated that Bible distribution could not constitutionally be permitted. Brown v. Orange County Board of Public Instruction, 1960, Fla.App., 128 So.2d 181. Notwithstanding such notice of the potential constitutional infirmity inherent in any Bible distribution scheme, the Board again in 1970, prior to its adoption of the 1970 guidelines (see note 4, supra ), readily renewed this questionable practice. With the Board's permission, groups of Gideons descended on classrooms and roamed the aisles distributing Bibles to those children who indicated they would like one. At the en banc oral argument the counsel for the Board acknowledged that this form of distribution was clearly unconstitutional. Thus, despite the earlier state court ruling the Board, with no discussion, approved a highly questionable and later admittedly unconstitutional scheme. 20 The Board's conduct subsequent to the promulgation of the guidelines similarly evinces the nonsecular basis of the guidelines. For example, plaintiff's December 10, 1970 interrogatory No. 5 requested a variety of relevant information about the implementation of the Board's guidelines. 11 The Board's answer of February 1, 1971 stated that no principal has responded that he has implemented the guidelines. Because the Board acknowledged that thousands of Bibles had been distributed following adoption of the guidelines, this curt response tends to show that the Board failed to make any conscientious effort to enforce the guidelines or to even give an adequate answer to the interrogatory. Furthermore, there exists no indication that the Board's Statement of Compliance of January 13, 1971, which modified the guidelines by limiting distribution to the libraries, was ever complied with, enforced, or even circulated. 12 In fact, evidence at the March 8, 1971 compliance hearings indicated that Bible distribution may not have been limited to the libraries. By a deposition incorporated in the record at the compliance hearing, Mr. Considder, the Bible Secretary of the Gideon Camp, testified that distributions had occurred in areas such as school picnic grounds and school cafeterias. 13 21 Finally, the record reveals that the Gideon Camp again, on two separate occasions in August and September 1973, clearly after issuance of the 1970 guidelines, requested permission to distribute Bibles in the schools. The Board tabled the request by a 4-3 vote to await counsel's legal opinion on the outcome of this litigation. Thus, despite the strong dictum issued by the District Court in an earlier order, 14 the Board apparently felt that the legality of further Bible distribution was not settled, but instead depended on the outcome of the current litigation. Consequently, this negative action demonstrated the Board's desire, or at least continued willingness, to sanction Bible distribution for particular groups or sects. 22 Considered as a whole the record portrays a pattern of conduct which manifests the Board's predilection to encourage particular religions and in doing so to promote most particularly the aims of the Gideon movement. In the face of rulings by both the Florida state court and the federal District Court which indicated the likely constitutional infirmity of a Bible distribution scheme, the Board's conduct exhibits a sectarian commitment to Bible distribution, sectarian in the sense that the Board thought availability of Bibles was for religious values, not, say, as instruments of good literature. Such conduct also exposes the Board's disregard for the enforcement of the guidelines themselves. It is inescapable that the Gideon campaign principally, if not exclusively, motivated the Board's promulgation of the guidelines and, correspondingly, that a primarily sectarian purpose underlay those guidelines.