Preacher told to keep Bible tracts away from school

Halifax – A Christian preacher has been ordered by Nova Scotia’s highest court to keep religious pamphlets to himself when visiting his children’s school.

Sean Bonitto is a fundamentalist Christian who distributed gospel tracts to children and others at Park West School during school hours.

The pamphlets said non-Christians  would burn in a sea of eternal flames. Some of the religious literature had disturbing images such as a cat being sacrificed with a knife; a human figure wearing a pumpkin on its head and carrying a chainsaw with a caption that it wanted a human sacrifice. Other tracts provided detailed descriptions of the types of injuries inflicted during a crucifixion.

Halifax Regional School Board ordered Bonitto to stop distributing the pamphlets.

He appealed the decision to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court claiming the school board was infringing on his freedom of religious expression.

After a trial, the court rejected his claim so Bonitto took his case to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.

In a decision released earlier this week, a panel of three judges upheld the Supreme Court’s decision to prohibit Bonitto from distributing religious material at the school and ordered him to pay the board $5,000 in legal costs.