The U.S. Department of Justice is supporting a religious group's court battle against the county school system to have its fliers sent home in students' backpacks.Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland Inc. runs an after-school program, called the Good News Club, in two of the county's elementary schools.
Good News Clubs are "groups of boys and girls, meeting weekly to hear Bible stories, play games, sing songs, and memorize Scripture," says a flier advertising the group in the Mill Creek Towne Elementary School in Gaithersburg. The other Good News Club meets in Clearspring Elementary School in Damascus.
CEF has charged the school system with viewpoint discrimination, saying it rejected the fliers only because of the Good News Club's evangelical mission, but allows information from other groups, including religious organizations.
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