What's happened: A New York City church has been in a running legal battle since 1994 with a local school district. At issue is whether the church can rent school facilities for worship services during non-school hours. Although the district rents space for many other community activities, its policy prohibits any space rental for "religious services or religious instruction." The church sued in federal district court, and the case has bounced back and forth several times between that court and the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where it currently rests. The U.S. Department of Justice feels so strongly about the case that it has weighed in with a "friend of the court" brief in support of the church's right to rent the school facilities.
What's at stake: The main question in this case is whether this district's refusal to rent to the church constitutes "viewpoint discrimination" which violates the First Amendment's "free speech" clause. Essentially, this means that if the government is going to provide a forum for nongovernmental, "private" speech – such as renting out public facilities to community organizations, for example – then the government cannot allow only some community-related speech and exclude other community-related speech. The church argues that its worship services include community-related speech, albeit from a religious viewpoint, and therefore the school district cannot refuse to rent to them. The school district argues that "worship" is not "speech" at all, so refusing to rent school facilities for "worship services" does not constitute "viewpoint discrimination." The 2nd Circuit is now being asked to decide this issue.
Why you should care: First, if worship is not protected "free speech," then school districts, libraries and other government facilities hostile to religion can refuse to rent to churches or other faith-based groups which intend to conduct worship services as part of their events. Think about how many churches already meet in school gymnasiums or auditoriums around the country, and you can begin to understand the potential impact of this decision. Second, the school district's policy necessarily entangles the government in religion, as it is left to the government to decide what "worship" is in the context of each facility rental application. Government is particularly unqualified to make such a determination, and ought to be precluded from doing so anyway under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
What might happen if this gets to the Supreme Court: On the encouraging side, previous Supreme Court cases like Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch. and Lambs Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist have required equal access for faith-based groups to government facilities on the same terms as other community groups. However, recently the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a 9th Circuit decision upholding a public library policy prohibiting use of a community room for worship services. That case is Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover. Such a refusal to hear a case usually means that the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court decision. However, the facts of that 9th Circuit case are somewhat different than Bronx Household; different enough, arguably, to create the expectation that the Supreme Court will support the church's arguments in this case.
