The Orange County, Florida school board is considering banning outside groups from handing out religious materials in schools after they got word that a Satanic group was planning on handing out coloring books.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that they had previously allowed bibles and other materials to be handed out to students in the past. Atheist groups were even allowed to hand out material, but chairman Bill Sublette said that this is where they have to draw the line.
“This really has, frankly, gotten out of hand,” Sublette told the Sentinel. “I think we've seen a group or groups take advantage of the open forum we've had.”
While they took up the topic this week, they won’t vote on the issue until January or February, officials told the Sentinel.
Doug Menser, who is also known as Lucien Greaves and a spokesman for the Satanic Temple, defended its plans to hand out the coloring book, which you can see here. In it, children are seen performing Satanic rituals.
Greaves called the current policy “a transparent attempt at giving exclusive privilege to an evangelical group,” adding that, “It's laughable and infuriating at the same time to hear the 'World Changers' now crying that an inability to distribute their materials exclusively is discriminatory against them.”
Some Christian groups told My Fox Orlando that they are not supporting a change to the policy.
“The bible distributions are a good thing,” Roger Gannam, of the Liberty Counsel, told the station. “They haven't caused any problems, but now by creating controversy this group is maybe perhaps getting what it wants.”