Don't hotels usually get rid of the crap people leave behind, books or otherwise? I realize that many hotels decide to keep the bibles, but is there some requirement they have to keep all literature people leave? I've never seen any book except the bible and the hotel magazine in a hotel room... there are sometimes lounges where people can leave used books behind. Why special treatment for the bible? The fact is, they AREN'T "letting them be in the rooms" for any other books.

I think applying the same standard to books across the board is a good policy.

If the atheists wanted to donate books on rational thought and they couldn't get fair play, that would be one thing. I'm an atheist but I'm also for the exposing of rather than squelching of ideas.

The only book I would even think about banning would be The Anarchist Cookbook but only because many of the recipes contained therein are more dangerous to the cook than to anyone else.

Why special treatment for the bible?

They're donated by the Gideons International. If the Freedom from Religion group wants to donate their own literature, that would be one thing. But this ain't that.

I wonder what they'll do when the Muslims start placing their tracts into the public space? oh, yes, that's right, they'll go hide under their desks, since making a public stand against Christians is so much safer than insulting the prophet.

Don't people usually write the phone numbers for local hookers inside those bibles?

@KateC,

Speaking of weird stuff people put in hotel bibles...

There's an online bill-tracking site called WheresGeorge.com. People mark dollar bills with the URL and spend them or leave them somewhere for people to find. The finder can then enter the bill on the site so it can be tracked around the world. Several users on that site frequently place marked bills in the hotel room bibles for people to find.

I've also found silly notes in these bibles, coupons, and, once, even a condom.

But Amy, they AREN'T putting in other books. The policy of hotels is to remove everything people leave behind... except bibles.

I always thought that bibles were put in the nightstand drawer as a service to guests. Last time I went to a hotel, there were three different choices of bible. This is not terribly different from having a list of places of worship (or churches) in the room, in my mind.

Frankly, they aren't out in the open and they don't take up much space (I have never needed to put that much in the bedside table, have you?), so if you don't want them, you don't even have to look at them.

Making an issue out of nothing in my mind.

That said, I do believe in a limited censorship. I, as a parent, have a right to censor the materiel my children are exposed to.

. . . said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “We can all sleep easier knowing secularism is being honored at our public universities."

"we can all sleep easier"!? I'm glad she has had such a charmed life that a bible placed in the nightstand was the thing keeping her awake at night.

The rest of us are too busy trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads; and she is losing sleep over a bible in the hotel nightstand - what an idiot.

But Amy, they AREN'T putting in other books. The policy of hotels is to remove everything people leave behind... except bibles.

These books aren't "left behind"; they're donated. The Gideons don't try to stay in every room and sneak a book into the nightstand.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at February 18, 2014 11:36 AM

Yes, and you are free to take the bible with you when you leave. The Gideons hope for that.

My husband took a Gideon bible from a hotel in Tokyo. He wanted it because it was in Japanese.

“If a state-run university has a policy of providing a Christian religious text to guests, that policy facilitates illegal endorsement of Christianity over other religions and over nonreligion.”

Has the university prohibited any other organization from placing literature? If not, then there is no illegal endorsement of Christianity over other religions or belief systems.

Of course, if the university starts allowing everyone with even a pseudo-religious belief system to place propaganda in the rooms, they're gonna need a bigger nightstand.

I was once in a hotel that provided not only Gideon Bibles, but a copy of Dianetics in the room. I tried to read either of them, but they were both so dense I gave up and breezed through a copy of War and Peace instead.

“We’re delighted to see reason and the Constitution prevailing,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “We can all sleep easier knowing secularism is being honored at our public universities.”

This isn't the Constitution prevailing. It's a militant anti-religion organization having a conniption fit that someone somewhere might be exposed to a religious word or image.

The Constitution only prohibits the making of a " law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." Allowing a religious organization to place literature in a hotel room (even one run by the state's university system) hardly comprises the government's establishment of a religion. Nor does it prohibit the free exercise of a religion that is not affiliated with the one that placed the literature.

While you may disagree, the basic problem is that the presence of the bibles on state property amounts to the state's imprimatur or promotion of a particular religion. This is not an appropriate use of state property or tax dollars, because the state must be viewpoint neutral.

Rich: "state must be viewpoint neutral."

How is banning a charity's works on state property because it is religious in nature "viewpoint neutral"? How is that not "anti-religious," which is a viewpoint?

Yes, I could see if the religious charity were trying to preach in the lobby of the hotel, or if they insisted that every room had to have GIANT crucifix hanging above the headboard. But, come on now, this is just a simple book being left in the nightstand drawer. Most folks don't even look in there.

I've always thought the Freedom FROM Religion folks were just mean and nasty; and this case proves it.

Isab, are you sure it was the Western Bible? The Red Swastika Society, a Buddhist (not Nazi) charity in East Asia, following the example of the Gideons puts Buddhists texts in hotel rooms.

Now, I could see this case being a problem is the Red Swastika Society asked the university hotel to include their book and the hotel said no. But, such doesn't seem to be the case. These anti-religious nuts just went after a harmless charity because they are easy to bully.

I'll say it again, these folks are idiots.

It reminds me of a former friend who had the same nasty attitude against religion. Just a couple of days after the 9-11 attacks she was all upset because Congress "endorsed" religion by singing God Bless America on the Capital steps in response to the terror attacks.

Seriously, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were still smoldering and she saw a song that mentions God as a threat?!

That's one reason she is a former friend. Irrational anti-religious attitude is still irrational.

...because the state must be viewpoint neutral. ~ Posted by: Rich at February 18, 2014 12:06 PM

Viewpoint neutral does not mean viewpoint hostile.

So what next, forcing the removal of the 'local business phone books' because it could be seen as promoting non-communistic ideas.

I'm also on the atheist side, as far as having a bible in a room in a drawer: WTF is getting your panties in a wad?

Would it also be illegal for a Starbucks barista to have a pocket bible in their apron? Or would that be offensive as well?

Get a freaking clue.

"Isab, are you sure it was the Western Bible? The Red Swastika Society, a Buddhist (not Nazi) charity in East Asia, following the example of the Gideons puts Buddhists texts in hotel rooms."

Yes, it was a Gideon bible in Japanese and English. This was at the New Sanno, a Hotel run by the American Navy in Tokyo.

Christianity is doing well in Japan where it coexists nicely with Shinto, and Buddhism.

How awful.

Some lonely person might open a book and read stories about how the old society viewed the world and imagined the supernatural.

Or they might even draw a little hope or strength. Not every hotel stay is a happy one.

Nah. Screw that. Put liquid depressants in the fridge and porn on the TV. You can charge for those!

That said, I do believe in a limited censorship. I, as a parent, have a right to censor the materiel my children are exposed to. - Shannon M. Howell

Censorship is forcing others to not display, or share in some manner something they created, preventing your kids from seeing something you think they are not ready for is not censorship, its parenting.

Which Rich said. Jim, you do, I hope, see that a Starbucks barista having a Bible in their pocket does not constitute Government endorsement of a particular religious school of thought?

Which Rich said. Jim, you do, I hope, see that a Starbucks barista having a Bible in their pocket does not constitute Government endorsement of a particular religious school of thought?