Iowa State Removes Bibles from Campus Hotels

Iowa State University is removing Bibles from its campus hotel guest rooms in response to an atheist's complaint.

The Des Moines Register reports a guest enlisted the Freedom From Religion Foundation to have the Bibles taken out of the rooms.

The atheist group asked the university to remove the Gideon Bibles, arguing that providing them to guests is tantamount to endorsing Christianity, which it says is illegal in state-run institutions.

"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," wrote Patrick Elliott, the organization's attorney, to hotel director Richard Reynolds.

The Bibles will now be placed in the university's library for lending.