A Biblical Injunction

Gideons International, the traveling men's organization famed for distributing Bibles in hotels, has long hoped to extend its activities to the nation's public schools. The Rutherford, N.J. Board of Education approved a Gideons offer to give copies of the New Testament, bound with the Old Testament Books of Psalms and Proverbs, to public-school children whose parents made written requests. But a Jewish father, Bernard Tudor, backed by the American Jewish Congress, and a Catholic parent, Ralph Le Coque (who later withdrew from the case), contested the plan in court and obtained a temporary injunction. This week the New Jersey supreme court unanimously made it permanent.

Wrote Chief Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt: "Distribution of the King James version in the public schools of this state would . . . cast aside all progress made in the U.S. and throughout New Jersey in the field of religious toleration and freedom.

"We would be renewing the ancient struggles among the various religious faiths to the detriment of all. This we must decline to do."

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