A satanic group's request to hand out coloring books at a Florida school has administrators considering a ban on religious materials in district high schools.
The Orange County School Board plans to hold a public hearing on the matter in January with a vote to come soon after that.
“Religious instruction really belongs in the home, not in the schools,” school board chairman Bill Sublette told MyFox Orlando.
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The school board began to rethink its religious materials distribution policy after a group called the Satanic Temple asked to hand out coloring books.
“The new policy, if it passes, it still needs to go before the board, will prohibit the distribution of any religious materials in our schools,” Sublette told the station.
Religious groups have been allowed to set up tables in the district’s 18 high schools to pass out Bibles and booklets. But Sublette said the “process was abused. We tried to have an open forum but it was becoming disruptive to our educational environment.”
The Satanic Temple’s Lucien Greaves said in a statement the current policy was “a transparent attempt at giving exclusive privilege to an evangelical group.”
Sublette said he received 11,000 emails from people all over the country when the request from the devil-worshiping group first generated controversy and became national news.
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