A school district in California had an interesting money raising idea… have people buy memorial bricks and allow them to put phrases on them, then they were to be used in a wall at the school. BUT, some folks decided to quote Bible verses… well, we can’t have students see Bible verses… so they are scrapping the whole idea and returning $45,000.00 in cash! Wow! That Bible stuff must be REALLY dangerous!

California School District Cancels Fundraiser After Submission of Scripture-Inscribed Bricks

“A California school district has canceled a fundraising program featuring memorial bricks, scuttling proceeds of $45,000, after two women submitted Bible verses in their tributes.

The two women, Lou Ann Hart and Sheryl Caronna, had filed a court complaint in January against the Desert Sands Unified School District after the district blocked them from placing the Bible verses on bricks to be installed in walkways at Palm Desert High School in Palm Desert, Calif., about 10 miles east of Palm Springs. The women sought an injunction against the district to compel it to allow the scripture bricks.

Instead, school district officials have decided to rescind the fundraiser and refund money of every community group or individual who purchased a memorial brick, according to a court filing last week with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The move has angered advocates of religious freedom in the public sphere.

‘Christians should be allowed to express themselves on public school campuses just like everyone else,’ David Cortman, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, said in a written statement. Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian organization, initiated the lawsuit for Hart and Caronna.

‘It is cowardly to shut down everyone’s participation in this program simply out of animosity toward Christian speech,’ Cortman said. ‘There is absolutely nothing unconstitutional about a Bible verse on a brick when a school opens up a program for anyone to express a personal message. The school could simply have allowed the Bible verses, but instead, it chose to punish everyone.’

Hundreds of other messages had been accepted for the bricks, Cortman’s organization said, including inspirational and religious themes, such as a quote from Mahatma Gandhi and a Bible quotation — ‘Yes, it is possible’ — written in Spanish.

Hart, of Palm Desert, and Caronna, of Rancho Mirage, were informed after submitting their bricks that they would not be included because the religious content risked an unconstitutional establishment of religion, Alliance Defense Fund officials said.”