Florida Men Arrested for Handing Out Bibles

Last month, Anthony Mirto and Ernest Simpson, volunteers with Gideons International, were handing out Bibles outside a Monroe County, Florida public school. The school's principal didn't like it and called the police. When the Monroe County Sheriff's Department officer arrived on the scene, he asked the two men to leave. As they were preparing to depart, the officer arrested them.

The Gideons are best known for their distribution of Bibles. They typically utilize the services of local volunteers, such as Mirto and Simpson, to carry out their work.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal defense group, has stepped forward to defend the Gideon volunteers. According to ADF, neither Mirto nor Simpson entered Key Largo School grounds, but this is contested by Monroe County officials. "The First Amendment protects the right to engage in religious speech on a public sidewalk," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman in a press release. "Members of the Gideons have been highly respected for decades as peaceful providers of free Bibles to those who want them."

Religious expression in the public square, particularly that which involves the distribution of Bibles or other religious literature, has become the subject of much controversy in recent years. Nowhere as this battle been more intense than in the nation's public school systems. Key Largo School is a K-8 public school located in Key Largo, Florida.

The Monroe County Sheriff's Department contests ADF's claim that the men were on a public sidewalk. Citing the official police report, a spokeswoman for the office said that the men were "arrested for trespassing on school property -- not on a public sidewalk." The spokeswoman said that the men were "given the opportunity to step off school property and onto public property, and they could have continued with their activities if they had done so." They were arrested, the spokeswoman says, "after repeated warnings."

According to ADF, the men were arrested after they agreed to comply with the officer's demand that they leave the sidewalk. Monroe County Sheriff's officials, however, dispute this. A hearing has been set for March 5. ADF attorneys will move for a dismissal.