Florida Wiccan Files Challenge
of Biblical Proportions
A Marion County, Florida, man has asked the county library to remove the Bible. Tearing in half the spine of a paperback copy of his own, Charles Schrader contended at a February 6 county commission meeting that the mothers of home-schooled children would do likewise if their youngsters found the tales of incest, rape, and murder that are “between these holy pages,” the February 7 Ocala Star-Banner reported.
A Wiccan who protested the Christian invocation that preceded a January Citrus County School Board meeting, Schrader admitted to the February 2 Star-Banner that “there’s some facetiousness” to his challenge: He merely wants to demonstrate the absurdity of weighing excerpts taken out of context by comparing the Bible to Robie Harris’s sex-education book It’s Perfectly Normal.
In December, the commission declared itself the final arbiter in all materials challenges after library Director Julie Sieg declined to remove the Harris book. The commission subsequently backed down after County Attorney Gordon Johnston advised them of the unconstitutionality of content-based restrictions, according to the January 17 Star-Banner.
Sieg is expected to decide on Schrader’s challenge by early March.
Posted February 12, 2001.
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