Dec 5, 2011
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The Supreme Court has rejected an evangelical church’s plea to overturn New York City’s ban on renting public schools for religious worship services. That means the city now has a green light to begin evicting congregations who pay rent to use public school buildings for church services.
“The Department was quite properly concerned about having any school in this diverse city identified with one particular religious belief or practice,” said Jane Gordon, senior counsel for the New York City Law Dept. “”The Court of Appeals correctly upheld the Department of Education’s policy not to allow the City’s public schools to be used as houses of worship. This case has been litigated for 16 years, and we’re gratified that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear it. We view this as a victory for the City’s school children and their families.”
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the city’s policy.
The court case involved the Bronx Household of Faith – a church that paid weekly rent to hold worship services at a public school since 2002. The church, along with five dozen other congregations, was allowed to continue worshipping at public schools pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
It’s a sad day for religious liberty,” said Jordan Lorence, the church’s attorney and senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “Churches and religious other groups should be allowed to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups and they’re being denied that in New York City.”
Churches will have to vacate public schools on Feb. 12, 2012.
“What’s odd about this is that of the top 50 school districts in the nation, New York City is the only school district that has a policy banning worship services,” he told Fox News & Commentary. “It does not show respect for religious liberty.”
The immediate impact means dozens of Christian churches will have to find a new place to hold services.
“A lot of churches are going to be homeless,” said George Russ, executive director of the New York Metropolitan Baptist Association. He said about seven of the 220 Southern Baptist churches in the city will be impacted by the decision.
Russ said churches will be scrambling to rent hotel space, banquet halls and movie theatres.
“It’s going to be a lot more money,” he said.
“The odd thing is these guys have blessed the schools they’ve been in,” Russ said. “They all have good relationships with the schools they’ve been in. They’ve purchased furniture for the teacher’s lounge they’ve given video equipment to the schools. They’ve done so many thank-you kinds of projects.”
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that allowing churches to use schools resulted in an “unintended bias in favor of Christian religions” – since most Christian churches worship on Sunday.
“Jews and Muslims generally cannot use school facilities for their services because the facilities are often unavailable on the days that their religions principally prescribe for services,” Judge Pierre Leval declared. “At least one request(ed) to hold Jewish services (in a school building used for Christian services on Sundays) was denied because the building was unavailable on Saturdays. This contributes to a perception of public schools as Christian churches, but not synagogues or mosques.”
Judge Leval also took issue with the evangelical church’s membership. “Bronx Household acknowledges that it excludes persons not baptized, as well as persons who have been excommunicated or who advocate the Islamic religion, from full participation in its services.” Leval wrote.
But it all boiled down to a key point, the judges decided. “In the end, we think the board could have reasonably concluded that what the public would see, were the Board not to exclude religious worship services, is public schools, which serve on Sundays as state-sponsored Christian churches,” Leval wrote.
With reporting from the Associated Press
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The first Amendment says "Congress" shall pass no law… This means that the federal government can NOT PASS A LAW establishing religion. If the government owned buildings are state then it is up to the state if they want to rent to Christians and the only say the federal government has in the argument is whether the free practice of religion has been obstructed, which it has. Thus the reason the federal Supreme Court refused to hear the case. They need to consult the New York State Consitution to see what it says about the subject. My guess is that it is silent. In the begining most states had their own established religion which is the reason for this part of the First Amendment. The fact that the Supreme Court turned it down doesn't mean they concure with the other courts. In fact, if it was a federal court it was out of it's jurisdiction.
Left-Wing NYC hates Christians, and this just confirms what everyone knows. It goes along with NYC's decision to allow desecration of Jesus Art Displays.
churches stinks!
So if someone else rents the school on Sunday the churches should sue the city for discrimination.
People are stupid. If someone wants to be ignorant and blind by thinking that the state is sponsoring Christian churches, let them! It's a shame that a profitable arrangement(for both the school and the church) should be hampered because people are so self-centered and choose to be ignorant of reality!
I guess this is what 3 months living in a country that is tolerant of religions will do to you. Open your eyes and let you see how blind so many in your own country are. How is it being intolerant to any other religions when a school allows a church to rent on a day when it's not being used, and yet it is tolerant to Christians to not allow them to rent said school and force them into a hardship where it's more expensive and difficult to find a place to worship…. Do you get what I mean? "Religious tolerance" in America is changing quickly to "Christian intolerance." Why is it that public schools in America have to allow any Muslim actions like times of prayer and religious adornments, but Christians aren't allowed to stand together and say a prayer? Or they're ridiculed when they sit quietly in a study hall and read their Bible.
Someone please tell me any harm that came in the "16 years of litigation" that finally resulted in this ban….Just because some close minded people see an "unintended bias" means that you should cut off a profitable situation. How many people went into those churches who didn't want to be there? How many people were really negatively impacted by those churches?
Agreed, Craig.
Some of the people on this board obviously never listened to a word Christ spoke. Otherwise they wouldn't be using such hateful language to promote their political views. This is one of the biggest reasons I decided that religion was not for me. I'm agnostic and do not claim to know anything more than you but I'm sure I'll be demonized as a communist for expression my opinion so have at it carnivores…prove me right…tell me how we have to live within a strict fundamentalist interpretation (YOUR interpretation) of the Constitution that basically means there's no need for a justice system to apply it.
The Constitution says "Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" which means "exercise any day, any time, any place, any manner" including places public, and didn't they also say the Bible was to be the primary textbook taught in all the schools, and didn't even Thomas Jefferson advocate for the federal government to pay for missionaries to convert Indians, and didn't Geroge Washington repeatedly point out that government cannot exist without God, and didn't Benjamin Franklin chatise the convention because before the wars they prayed for success and when they won they failed to offer gratitude to God, and on and on goes the list of how the Christian religion was to be advanced throughout the new United States.
By the way, "religion" in those days was used to refer to the Christian religion and only the Christian religion.
This violates the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches School District. The Court of Appeals can't overturn a decision of a higher court. I am shocked that the Supreme Court wouldn't hear a case where the court below it clearly went against a principle set by the court. Also I would like to add that a church renting the facilities of a public school for worship is not the government endorsing a specific belief. They were paying for a service and students were not in anyway obligated to go to those worships. Moral decay mixed with low legal IQ is a recipe for the end of America. "If we ever forget we are a nation under God, then we'll become a nation gone under"-Ronald Reagan.
What about the equall access law.
After further though, I believe that the court should have made them allow the other groups to meet on Saturday even if there must be a schedule and price adjustment versus banning religious observance of churches all together. When one right is limited, we risk losing ours as well.
Since Christians worship on Sundays and most of this country is still Christian we call Saturday and Sunday "weekend". I expect the next thing our courts will decide is that these "weekends" will no longer fall on Saturday and Sunday as that has a religious connotation. The muslims consider the "weekend" to be Thursday and Friday. I expect the court decision to be that "weekends" will be on Tuesday and Wednesday as to not offend anyone. That is, until someone comes up with a complaint about Wednesdays.
Church soon to go underground.
Again how is this news? It's a public school.
Now they can close a few more schools, since the money could have gone to pay a few more salaries, paint school rooms, hire security officers, buy new textbooks for students… and the list goes on….
This might be an extreme comment here – but if Christians are allowed to pay rent and worship in a school then that opens the door for every other religion to worship. Like Satanic "churches", Muslims, Mormons, Jews, Moonies, the list goes on and on. If the school district would deny let's say for example a Satanic Church, well then that opens the school district to be open to a lawsuit. I'm kinda in agreeance with the courts on this one. If you do it for one, you have to do it for all and New York is a very diverse culture of different religions. They can go to Christian Schools or private schools who I'm sure would rent space to them.
I asked a student of mine, during a lesson to identify 3 Holy days of the monotheistic religions we are studying: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. She was to base the information on her prior knowledge. I did not ask her what her faith was, however, I assumed that perhaps she had attended some religious services with her family during her years prior to secondary education. She had no memory of any particular visit to a place of worship since she was about 5 or 6. Point being, does the state need yet another venue to remove spiritual awareness from our society. This ship is sailing merrily to the shores of decadence. We are on the brink of living in a 'FREE SOCIETY." Free of moral consciousness and all ethics. I guess Confucious, and Siddartha were totally out of line in their suggested provisions for society… One more for the pompous and self righteous.
Establishment clause rules, unless a disinegnuous mind decides to consciously contort the original meaning , and intent of clear language. Enter Satan with his "Did God really say" attack. Language says what it says, unless distorted for ideological ends. What is also troubling is that taxpayer argument for equal access to public property by taxpapers seems to be missing from the core argument. Those who ignore history are pawns of the exisitentiall singular moment of relativity and doomed to blindness. Interesting that in the 17, 18 and 19th centuries government at all levels used churches for meetings and voting, hospitals in the civli War, and still does voting from them today. Hmmmmmmm by d. Lamont
"Damned are the ways of earth's righteous and the justice formed from cold hearts.
Since not one soul will read the Charts."
OKay, here's the next step this begs to question…IF they cannot have church on Sunday at the schools because the day that no one is in school makes it look like they're siding with Christians…then WHY do they not have SCHOOL ON SUNDAYS, if in fact the schools are not biased that way? Makes no sense…They either need to have school seven days a week, or let people rent the schools on the days they aren't open…irregardless of whatever that day is…This is stupid and childish…with a real simple solution…
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