Democrat Arizona State Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton apologized Wednesday after being caught on video hiding Bibles in the State House member lounge.
“I hold Scripture very dear to my heart,” azcentral.com reported Stahl Hamilton, D-Tucson, saying Wednesday, following the moment of prayer that begins every House floor session. “It is what guides me. It is what shapes and informs the decisions I make. I have the utmost respect for people of all faiths, and for people who choose not to have a faith. And because of that respect, I recognize my actions could have been seen something as less than playful — and offensive.”
Stahl Hamilton, an ordained pastor who graduated with a Christian Education degree from the Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, and has served as a director of Christian education and youth ministry at a Presbyterian church, was captured on video hiding Bibles in the lounge under seat cushions and in a refrigerator, according to the report.
“It makes me a little uncomfortable, and I think it’s kind of offensive to people who believe in and cherish the Bible,” Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, told the publication. “I feel like a disappointed dad.”
The report said the “missing” Bibles mystery “went on for weeks” until House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Glendale, ordered a video camera be put in the exclusive members lounge on the advice of state security personnel.
Stahl Hamilton said she pulled the “prank” to highlight the division of church and state in the chamber.
“The intent was never to be destructive, to never desecrate or to offend,” she said in the report.
The report said it is not yet clear if she will face disciplinary action for hiding the Bibles, but fellow Democrats expressed concerns about the camera being placed in the lounge without their knowledge.
“We have members wondering what is public record and what is not,” House Democratic Leader Rep. Andrés Cano, D-Tucson, said in the report.
Grantham told the news outlet that personnel removed the camera after capturing Stahl Hamilton on video hiding the Bibles.
Stahl Hamilton said that after noticing a Bible in the “government building” several weeks ago, she moved it under a seat cushion as a “simple little prank,” but then hid it again after it was discovered and placed back out into the open.
“To my brain, it just felt like it’s a game … a peaceful, playful protest,” she said in the report. “I have long been frustrated by the blurred lines between separation of church and state.”
