The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Feb. 28 on a lower court ruling against a Christian youth organization’s right to use public school facilities.
The case — Good News Club vs. Milford Central School — has spotlighted the differing ways of interpreting the First Amendment’s religion clauses. More than a dozen religious and civil liberties groups have filed briefs in the case.
While non-religious groups, such as the Boy Scouts and 4-H Club, were allowed to use school facilities after hours, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said a New York school district’s policy could deny access to the Good News Club.
The Milford Central School District has since 1992 had a policy allowing district residents to use school facilities for holding social, civic and recreational meetings but not for “religious purposes.”
The Good News Club — affiliated with a Christian missionary organization known as Child Evangelism Fellowship — applied in 1996 to use the school’s facilities to have “a fun time of singing songs, hearing [a] Bible lesson and memorizing Scripture.”
After reviewing program materials, Robert McGruder, interim superintendent of schools in the Milford School District, described the curriculum as “the equivalent of religious instruction.”
The Milford Board of Education denied the application. The club filed a complaint with a U.S. district court in March 1997, charging its free speech, equal protection and religious freedom rights had been violated. The district ruled in favor of the school district and the 2nd Circuit upheld the ruling.
“Although other cases may present difficult questions of line-drawing, we believe that the school authorities, after thorough inquiry and deliberation, correctly determined that the activities of the club fall clearly on the side of religious instruction and prayer,” the appeals court ruled.
The Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing for the club’s right to use school facilities for after-school meetings. Also signing the brief were James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice.
Also supporting the Good News Club is the Baptist Joint Committee. The BJC signed onto a different brief, however, joined by the National Council of the Churches of Christ, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church and others.
Meanwhile, groups including People For the American Way and the Anti-Defamation League, have filed briefs against the Good News Club. (ABP)
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