Florida Senator Marco Rubio has a penchant for waking up early and tweeting a daily Bible verse to the 3 million followers of his Twitter account.
But an organization devoted to the separation of church and state has asked him to stop, claiming that he’s breaking the law.
Last week, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent the request in a letter to Rubio's Washington D.C. office. They cited the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in June that tweets from President Donald Trump’s personal Twitter account are, in fact, official statements.
“We have no issue with people reading and discussing the Bible,” says Andrew Seidel, the foundation's director of strategic response. “But it is not for the government in our secular republic to promote one religious book over others or to promote religion over nonreligion. Doing so violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.”
Rubio also has a “@SenRubioPress” account, but the foundation cites several examples of government-related information being sent out via the personal account, including a press release from his office consisting of 10 tweets from @MarcoRubio.
If the senator fails to comply, the group says they will pursue legal action. So far, this hasn’t stopped Rubio from hitting the send button.