This was known, it is basic first amendment logic, but fundies can’t leave the rest of us alone because if they do they will die and go to hell. So, more time, money and resources have been wasted on a continuing court battle that may have ended today at the Supreme Court.
The justices refused to review the ruling by a U.S. appeals court that upheld a New York City Board of Education policy against religious worship at its schools.
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical Christian church. It wanted to use a local school for Sunday religious services, including singing of hymns, prayer and preaching from the Bible.
And no you can’t, so please grow up and get a life and leave the rest of us alone.
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
I’m not familiar with the details of this case, but your title is a bit of an oversimplification of the current court rulings and precedents (yes, another case SIWOTI)!
Churches and religious groups can use schools for religious services, but the restrictions are pretty tight, and that’s probably why this case went the way it did (I’ll have to look at the specifics later).
To also oversimplify a little, but offer clarification:
Schools, and other public government buildings like libraries, can be used for places of worship if:
1) They are open to all public with the same price/time restrictions.
2) No favoritism is shown in leasing/renting the facilities to religious institutions.
So a library that wouldn’t allow a loud group in a meeting room could disallow a church service if it thought they were going to be significantly louder, for instance. I suspect, the church in this case wanted some special dispensation (like not having to pay for it) that caused this sort of ruling. That’s usually what happens. And I recall reading about one church that a school stopped leasing a public venue to because a lot of materials and supplies ‘went missing’, and mysteriously, a lot of religious tracts got left laying around for the kids to find. The church lost that case too.
Fastlane, this is a case of religious groups wanting to use a public facility, told they can’t, couldn’t, appealed, still can’t.
The summary from Reuters:
“The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that religious groups cannot use public schools facilities for worship services outside of normal school hours in a case about church-state separation.”
Italics approximate the bit I adapted to use for the headline.
So, who exactly is SIWOTI? As it were?
It is often the case that the seven to 12 word long title does not capture all of the detail. Otherwise I wouldn’t blog, I’d tweet.
Jeesh.
It’s done all the time here in the Armpit of California. I suppose that if the fundies were chased off the local school boards, a policy might be written to ban such use…but until then, no.
Not an uncommon phenomenon elsewhere either. USA Today did a feature on it a few months back.
What is WOTI is that this is a very finely carved case. The Supreme Court has already ruled that religious groups can use school properties after hours if it’s allowed in general. This case was treated differently because it involved actually conducting religious services. Moreover, 1) it doesn’t ban them explicitly, but only allows local jurisdictions to ban them, and 2) the Supreme Court didn’t actually take up the case, which means it only applies to the Second Circuit’s jurisdiction.
http://gothamschools.org/2011/12/05/sunday-schools-after-household-of-faith-v-board/
Jeesh Greg, it took me way longer to type this comment than the five seconds it took to look that up on Google.
Part of the problem is that the school facilities aren’t in use on Sundays, due to the country’s long deference to one particular religion’s timetables. Other groups such as atheists etc would be able to use the facilities on the same basis on weekdays–except the schools are using them on those days (scheduling special extracurricular events so as not to occur on Sunday.) So they tend to be exclusively used by the cultists.
Schools can either allow all religious groups to rent out their facilities or none. My local school district allows all and does all a church to meet there.
I do think your post title is misleading…not sure how to accurately title it myself, though.
Midnight.. Nothing I have said contradicts what you have googled. My post is a fucking link to a fucking supreme court document and a fucking on line news report about it, for fucksake. What do you fucking want?
Fucking Jeesh …
Oh yeah, that’s why I usually skip this blog.
Fastlane, I wrote a blog post that pointed to some stuff. You told me I left out important stuff and told me what the stuff was. It was pretty much the same stuff.
Did you read the original material at all? To which this post was a mere pointer?
No, of course not. You call yourself fastlane. How about breakdown lane?
If you want every blog post to be exactly as you would have done it, grow some and start your own blog and then read it to the exclusion of every other blog.
Meh. This seems like the least reason to get worked up over anything. Lets assume they get their way, and hold services on Sundays in school buildings. The result would be… A DISASTER! Oh wait, it wouldn’t. It would be a bunch of people gathering to do their weird rituals every week in an empty building. Probably making the school a little pocket money, too. If I remember correctly, the Constitution prohibits the promotion of one religion at the expense of others, right? So long as the answer to a similar request from, say, Muslims is “yes”, there’s no reason why the answer to this group’s request shouldn’t be “yes”.
Its not like they’re asking to stuff a crucifix up every student’s arse, is it? All they want to do is have the use of an empty building for their own fairly innocuous ends. This isn’t about foisting religion on the rest of us, its about wanting a place to practice their religion privately.
TL:DR; I don’t see what you’re getting upset about. Its just a bunch of guys who want to rent an otherwise empty room.
Awww, did you have your widdle feefees hurt, cupcake?
I pointed out some subtleties in most court precedents that may not have been evident in your post. I’m sorry if you’re such a sensitive little fluffy that some humor and detail is so painful for you to endure.
I found your defensive reaction rather amusing, actually. Particularly ironic, your ‘grow some’ comments, based on what is apparently a very thin skinned reaction. Maybe blogging isn’t for you.
I also expect you will now refrain from criticizing anything you haven’t done in the future, since you seem to think I’m not allowed to comment on how crappy your legal analysis is without writing a legal blog of my own.
You will live up to your own standards, correct, or should we had flaming hypocrite to thin skinned nancy as well, eh?
Cheers.
Crap, I cannot get images to load properly on this website. I’m using firefox 3.4… yes, I know I need to update, but some of my add-ons are not capatable with the newest firefox. Anyways, I inform you of the ptoblem. Later.
Mark Comerford is correct…the USPS only cares about making their phony numbers and their subsequent bogus bonuses. It’s all a sham,and thus a shame.