The Supreme Court today refused to consider an appeal by the Gideons who were prohibited from distributing free Bibles to Rutherford, N. J., school children. The decision leaves standing a 1953 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that the distribution was unconstitutional.
Bernard Tudor, a Jewish resident of Rutherford, N. J., filed suit against the Rutherford Board of Education in Bergen county to stop the distribution of the Bibles. Mr. Tudor claimed the practice impaired the religious freedom of his child who attended a Rutherford public school. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the Bible, which contained Scriptures from the Old and New Testaments was “sectarian” and that distribution violated Constitutional guarantees involving separation of church and state.
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