Two Maryland legislators have asked for the state attorney general’s opinion of the Carroll County (Md.) Public Library’s deletion of a biblical passage from 13,000 donated coupons that the library distributed in summer-reading goodie bags.
Corn maze owner Suzanne Shea had contributed the admissions coupons, which included a quote from Ephesians 6:17 that reads, “And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” CCPL Director Linda Mielke enlisted volunteers to excise the passage with markers after she talked with Shea. “If you come into my library and you want to read about religion, I have all of the books there for you,” Mielke said in the June 29 Baltimore Sun. “If I put something in the packet about one religion, the patron isn’t choosing.”
“I think they’ve drawn the line too close,” Maryland State Sen. Larry E. Haines (R-Carroll County) countered, asserting that a reference on a coupon is not “government sponsorship of religion.”
Shea told the Sun that libraries in York and Adams counties in Pennsylvania distributed the coupons unedited.
Posted July 9, 2001.