New Bill Aims To Permit Religious Meetings In School Buildings

[rug]

6:28 PM
By: NY1 News

Some state lawmakers are hoping to stop the Department of Education from banning church groups from using schools for worship.

Brooklyn State Senator Marty Golden introduced legislation that would allow religious meetings and worship in the facilities when classes are not in session.

Some 60 churches citywide have been given until February 12 to relocate.

Among them is Brooklyn's Abundant Life Church, which was forced out of PS 91. It’s already found a new home.

http://brooklyn.ny1.com/content/top_stories/153949/new-bill-aims-to-permit-religious-meetings-in-school-buildings

This is a reaction to this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/nyregion/in-failure-of-legal-bid-churches-set-to-lose-public-school-space.html

[PassingFair]

1. What's wrong with holding religious meetings in CHURCHES?

I don't get this demand to infiltrate the public sphere with
religion.

[onager]

2. They need to do this because of 9/11!

No kidding.

My first question was how this poor, put-upon little church - that can't even afford a church building - managed to pay 17 years of legal fees to sue New York city.

Didn't take long to solve that mystery - the church is represented by Alliance Defense Fund.

The ADF was founded in 1994, by some very familiar names (according to Wikipedia):

...the late Bill Bright (founder, Campus Crusade for Christ), the late Larry Burkett (founder, Crown Financial Ministries), James Dobson (founder, Focus on the Family), the late D. James Kennedy (founder, Coral Ridge Ministries), the late Marlin Maddoux (president, International Christian Media), and Donald Wildmon (founder, American Family Association), along with the leadership of over thirty other conservative Christian organizations.

The ADF lawyers in this case are Jordan Lorence and Joe Infranco.

Over at the ADF blog, Jordan Lorence explains why churches absolutely have to invade the public schools with their mumbo-jumbo.

In his original letter to the city, written a couple weeks after the 9/11 attacks, he explained:

In light of what has happened at the World Trade Center, and in light of the Supreme Court’s Good News Club decision, I think these policy restrictions barring religious services and instruction are now unconstitutional, are obsolete public policy and need to be abandoned.

http://blog.speakupmovement.org/university/uncategorized/911-and-bronx-household-of-faith/

See? Because of 9/11, separation of church and state is now UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Makes perfect sense! Brilliant legal reasoning!

[cleanhippie]

8. You need to repost this as an OP.

Immediately

[ButterflyBlood]

6. Not every church can just build a new building or buy a new one

The one I go to rents out a room in an old industrial building. We share it with a computer security firm, a furniture leasing company and some other businesses. I don't see anything wrong with renting out a space in a school, it's not like anyone is forced to attend. Besides, churches allow their buildings to be used as voting places.

[PassingFair]

7. Schools are public buildings.

Do you think it's appropriate to put a church in a civic building?

[Dorian Gray]

11. Honestly

I'm open to having my mind changed about this, but I don't see the problem. It's not like the state is paying or sponsoring the services. The church pays rent for the space. I don't think the majority of the public would be confused into conflating the civic space with the church/religious meeting.

It's the same as AA renting out space in a building. Or weight watchers. (IMO.)

[PassingFair]

12. Right. No problem. I'm sure they would be happy to host islamic and wiccan ceremonies as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/nyregion/in-failure-of-legal-bid-churches-set-to-lose-public-school-space.html

snip>“A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church,” the judges wrote. The churches “tend to dominate the schools on the day they use them,” leading to a confusing situation for children who might believe the school was somehow a church, they added.

In addition, the churches were not equally open to every member of the public, the judges wrote. Bronx Household, for example, had acknowledged to the court that it excluded people from full participation in its services if they were not baptized, were excommunicated, or if they “advocate the Islamic religion,” the opinion said.

Supporters of the Bronx Household of Faith argue that the Department of Education is now in the inappropriate position of determining the difference between a worship service and an activity that includes prayer — something that might be different for every religion and congregation. <unsnip




There is no room for exclusionary dogma in public schools.

[Dorian Gray]

17. In Brooklyn?

I don't think anybody here would have a problem with Wiccan or Islamic services in a school. Maybe they would? Who knows! People surprise me every day. My neighborhood is so very inclusive, though, I'd be shocked if anybody protested something like that.

As per the legal ruling, if people were purposefully excluded from the buildings as the ruling states, then I believe that particular ruling is correct.

[ButterflyBlood]

15. As long as the church is paying like any other organization that'd rent out the space

then I don't see a problem.

[PassingFair]

16. Then school cannot discriminate against other religions.

And the "churches" cannot leave religious symbols and texts
where the public school children will see them.

[ButterflyBlood]

21. I don't have a problem with such a rule

Although I also don't believe that children are so impressionable that simply seeing a cross or Bible will instantly cause them to convert. By the same argument you could argue that churches should never be used as voting places because people would have to see religious symbols when entering them.

[LARED]

9. What part of the constitution separates religion from the public sphere? nt

[jeepnstein]

3. The early church met in homes.

After they got themselves booted from most of the synagogues they met in homes. They didn't go around demanding access to public buildings, not that it would have gone over too well with the Romans at that point anyway. If a believer needs a place to hold a service, why can't they open their home? Nope, instead they go running to the courts and seek a law suit. Give me a break. These culture warriors are wasting precious time and money.

[Igel]

5. Would you like 150 people in your living room?

Parking on your streets?

Public buildings in 150 AD were fairly few. Now they're fairly common.


I belonged to a church with a lot of small congregations. If the congregation was under 15 or 20, they'd meet in member's homes. Over 25 or so and parking becomes an issue with neighbors, and over 30 there's just not space. When we were house hunting we looked at one house with like 4500 sq ft of space--they'd added a second floor with a large open kitchen, a large space for meetings, and a smaller space for daycare or Bible school. It could fit 80 or 100. The neighbors hated it and were glad to see the group move out. There are limits to when my church's congregations could meet in homes. (Yeah, you could argue that a congregation of 150 should break up. Wreaks havoc on the budget if you actually want to hire a full-time minister. 6 congregations in one day is a bit rough.)


Congregations over 30 or 35 would meet in granges or hotels. I attended meetings in an armory and in a school auditorium. We even rented space from other church organizations, those with enough members or wealth or history to have built their own building. That's where the church I'm in now meets, in another church's hall. They don't have much use for it Saturday afternoon, and we have just about zero demand for space on a Sunday.

Whether they could rent space in a school depended on the state. In one state any organization or group that met there had to have an official sponsor from the school and be approved by the principal. In another state, any group that didn't damage the building was free to rent the space if it wasn't in use.

[jeepnstein]

14. My house is good for about 75, tops.

We bought it fully well intending to fill it up with friends and family every chance we get. Some times it's a church event, some times it's sitting around with guitars, some times it's a sit-down dinner, some times a political fund raiser. We have to cap the crowd at about 30 for the sit-down dinners or the table service gets really nutty. Parking is not a problem. It's in a mixed commercial/residential zone but really isn't well suited to being a business due to ADA compliance issues. If the weather is nice and we can use the rather large back yard we could easily go 150 or so. It's safe to say that my situation is not the norm.

If you want to support a full-time evangelist and maybe even a couple of associate ministers you need to be looking at around 300-400 to make it work. And even then it's a struggle if the church doesn't own it's building free and clear. The average church size in the U.S. is much smaller than that, around 75 if I remember correctly. That big of a church can't really function in a home setting and lots of folks are uncomfortable with the whole notion of having services outside of a "traditional" church setting. The down side to using a church building is it tends to make church a place you go to rather than a thing you are a part of.

I just don't see the value in launching a culture war over the use of publicly funded buildings in areas where it is not seen as acceptable for churches to be there. The animosity it creates just isn't worth it. I can see where you're coming from with respect to annoying the neighbors with home meetings. If your conduct creates stumbling blocks to others then it's a problem, isn't it? The more time I spend thinking and working with it, the more complex it all becomes.

[deacon_sephiroth]

4. They can't help themselves n/t

[Dorian Gray]

10. There is a high school only 3 blocks from

me (It used to be John Jay High School, but now it's subdivided into 3 smaller schools). They hold weekly church services within the premises. It always surprised me when I saw the signs, but I guess if people are renting the space out, the school is earning some much needed money. It's not like the students are going to the services.

[rug]

13. Is that the one in Brooklyn?

[Dorian Gray]

18. It is not PS 91

in the article, but it is a school in Brooklyn. 7th Avenue in Park Slope.

[rug]

20. Yeah, I know it.

I've never heard any of my friends in Park Slope mention it, let alone complain about it. All but two of them are atheists and that couple is Jewish.

[dmallind]

19. While the reasoning is asinine, this could potentially be ok.

Buildings have neither memories nor feelings nor the ability to proselytize. Churches are legal and for the most part harmless groups (at least the ones too poor to have their own buildings are). School districts need money. There is a workable solution here that should pass constitutional muster:

1) Any lawful group, religious or not, can rent school rooms at equal rates strictly outside of school hours. first come first served (or a bidding process perhaps with highest bidder winning no exceptions) with absolutely no access to the kids when they are at school for any purpose - classes, school events, sports, etc.

2) Groups can not change school property in any way, and have no influence at all on decor, signage and so on whether present in the rented space or not. They can not so much as remove a poster about a fire drill completed two weeks ago. let alone remove educational materials or student work no matter how much the group disagrees with them.

3) There can be no remnant of the group's activity left behind during school activities. No leaflets, slogans, signs, or other items of any kind. The first noncompliance means a permanent and immediate ban from further renting of any school district property for anyone associated with that group. Zero tolerance. Whether it's religious or political or just commercial.

I see no reason why religious groups should be excluded from this. There is a slight risk of a congregant child blurring the use of the same space for both educational and indoctrinating purposes but the strict rules against the group interfering with school ephemera and leaving any sign of their own presence should minimize this chance.

[ButterflyBlood]

22. I'm pretty sure any schools that host religious services already follow these rules

This is a pretty silly issue to get bent out of shape about. The only thing that banning the use of schools accomplishes is that some private business somewhere will get the rental money instead of the school.