The Gideons International wants to place copies of the Bible in all hotel rooms. Most hotels have complied with the request. Many Americans like the idea. Other Americans don’t care one way or the other. Some Americans want the Bibles removed.
In a free society, the questions of whether the Gideons should or shouldn’t make such a request, whether hotels should or shouldn’t acquiesce, whether Americans should or shouldn’t like the idea, whether Americans should or shouldn’t care one way or another, and whether Americans should or shouldn’t seek to have Bibles removed from hotel rooms are questions that have no answers. Nevertheless, the current controversy between Christians and atheists over Bibles in hotel rooms still serves as an introduction to how conflict in a free society can be resolved without interference by government.
The Gideons International, founded in 1899, and headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, focuses on “distributing complete Bibles, New Testaments, or portions thereof,” in more than 90 languages, to individuals and for placement in “selected public locations where large numbers of people” may be “searching for answers.” Bibles are freely distributed to students, prisoners, and police, fire, medical, and military personnel. Bibles are also freely placed in hospitals, convalescent homes, medical offices, prisons, jails, domestic-violence shelters, motels, and hotels. With a current membership of more than 300,000, The Gideons International has distributed more than 2 billion Scripture portions around the globe since its founding, including more than 88 million in 2014.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), serving the hospitality industry for more than a century, and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is “the sole national association representing all segments of the 1.9 million-employee U.S. lodging industry, including hotel owners, REITs, chains, franchisees, management companies, independent properties, state hotel associations, and industry suppliers.” The AH&LA claims to be “the voice of the nearly $163 billion lodging industry” and “the primary resource for timely hospitality news, statistics, and expert comment.” Representing approximately 16,000 members, the AH&LA provides “focused advocacy, communications support, and educational resources for an industry of more than 53,000 properties generating $176 billion in annual sales from 5 million guestrooms.”
The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), incorporated in 1978, and headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, is a “national membership association of approximately 20,000 freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree.” The organization’s purpose is to “promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.” It “works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church.” The Foundation and its staff attorneys “act on countless violations of separation of state and church on behalf of members and the public including: Prayers in public schools, payment of funds for religious purposes, government funding of pervasively sectarian institutions, and the ongoing campaign against civil rights for women, gays and lesbians led by churches.”
The co-presidents of the FFRF recently sent a letter to the president and CEO of the AH&LA urging the organization to “offer bible-free rooms, just as establishments now offer smoke-free rooms” and say “NO to the Gideons” and their attempts to exploit “hotels and motels to proselytize a captive audience.” Because “today almost one in four adult U.S. citizens” identifies as nonreligious, many hotel guests are “freethinkers — atheists, agnostics, skeptics or Nones — who are offended to be charged high fees only to be proselytized in the privacy of their own bedrooms,” and because the majority of international guests are not Christians, FFRF believes “it’s simply bad business to promote divisive religious teachings to a diverse clientele.” And besides, “Those who must read the bible every day will surely take precautions to travel with their own copies.”
But, of course, the FFRF has another issue with the Bible in hotel rooms. The organization maintains, among other things, that the Bible “makes gruesome bedtime reading,” has harmed “millions of men, women and children” by “bible teachings and primitive beliefs,” and “preaches women’s inferiority and submissiveness.” The letter concludes with an admonition to the hotel industry to follow the lead of one American hotel chain that has “removed religious materials from rooms, but offers such materials to guests upon request” and one British hotel chain that removed Bibles from its rooms “in order not to discriminate against any religion.”
The FFRF letter was followed by a press release stating that a similar letter was sent to the fifteen hotel companies that “are responsible for more than 33,000 hotels in the U.S. and more than 4.1 million rooms internationally.” The press release mainly quotes from the original letter, but adds that Gideon Bibles “in a bedstand drawer” are like a harmful “invasive species.” Because the FFRF is “an organization whose members embrace reason and science,” it “would prefer placement of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ to the invasive Gideons.”
Naturally, Christians — and especially conservative and evangelical Christians — are upset with the FFRF’s attempt to pressure hotels to say “NO to the Gideons.” They see it as part of the FFRF’s larger goal of removing all references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance, U.S. currency, government buildings and monuments, and public places. They also point out that some “freethinkers” have even defaced hotel Bibles with FFRF stickers reading, “Warning! Literal belief in this book may endanger your health and life.”
There are several reasons why hotel owners might want to retain Bibles in their hotel rooms regardless of what the FFRF thinks or what the AH&LA recommends: tradition, religion, business.
One, it is a long-standing American tradition that they may not want to break with. They may not care one way or another whether hotel rooms have Bibles, but they may not want to do anything that might give some people the impression that they are un-American or irreligious.
Two, for some hotel owners who are devout Christians, it might be a religious conviction. In cases like these, one might also find other religious literature in the hotel rooms to supplement the Bible. What people think about the Bible and other religious literature, or how their placement in hotel rooms affects business, is irrelevant to such owners.
And three, they might view it as good for business even though they personally are “freethinkers” themselves. They may think that Christians who stay at their hotels and find a Bible in the dresser drawer are more likely to return the next time they travel. They may think that the absence of a Bible will have the opposite effect. Or they may simply reason that the publicity resulting from the removal of Bibles from their hotel rooms will anger more Christians than the number of atheists it would delight.
Should hotels have Bibles in their rooms? That is entirely up to hotel owners. Just as it is entirely up to hotel owners whether their rooms contain hair dryers and coffee makers. Just as it is entirely up to hotel owners whether the televisions in their rooms have HBO or Showtime. Just as it is entirely up to hotel owners whether copies of the Muslim Koran, Marx’s Kapital, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Smith’s Wealth of Nations, the New York Times, the Democratic Party Platform, MAD magazine, or nothing will be placed in hotel rooms. Rooms in the Mormon-owned Marriott hotel chain generally contain a copy of the Book of Mormon alongside the Bible.
In a free society, individuals (and groups of individuals who unite to support some common cause) who don’t want hotels to place Bibles or literature in their rooms, don’t want hotels to offer pornographic pay-per-view movies, or don’t want some other practice of a hotel are free to make requests, write letters, send emails, issue press releases, organize boycotts, present petitions, or otherwise attempt to pressure hotels not to take a particular course of action — as long as their conduct is peaceful. And likewise for individuals and groups who want hotels to take a particular course of action. Again, as long as their conduct is peaceful.
But it’s not just hotels. In a free society, any individual or group who objects to the product or practice of some business can likewise make requests, write letters, send emails, issue press releases, organize boycotts, present petitions, or otherwise attempt to pressure a particular business or industry not to take a particular course of action — as long as their conduct is peaceful.
A free society does not mean a society without conflict. It simply means a society where someone cannot pressure the government to violate the rights of someone else.