I assume, given the size of the congregation, that the church is more of a 
megachurch or campus, indeed much like a university campus with various 
buildings and activities, than a church that is largely deserted except around 
worship times. I can't say I know anything about the racial composition of the 
congregation, what activities take place on campus and whether there have been 
previous issues with crime or trespass, what the crime rate in the area is, or 
any other potentially relevant issues. I'm not sure what burden or level of 
justification the law requires before the legislature will consider granting 
this status, or for that matter when small universities, including those that 
are predominantly of one race, do or do not require their own police forces and 
how searching legislatures are in granting that status to university police at 
colleges of this size. Although I'm happy to hear otherwise, I'm not sure how 
relevant any of that is in any event. And while I'm sensitive to the stark 
visibility of such questions in my state (as opposed to states in which class 
and racial segregation, generally tied together, are emphatically present but 
less visible and not treated as interfering with somewhat illusory narratives 
about that state's residents as relatively virtuous, liberal, or welcoming of 
others; I'm sure if I wanted to live in an effectively gated community in, say, 
Cambridge, Berkeley, Austin, or Northern Virginia, it wouldn't be hard to do 
so), given that this appears to be a first-of-its-kind request in the state, 
I'm not inclined to draw conclusions about its broader social implications. I 
do think it raises EC questions regardless of any of those issues. But I do 
thank you, quite sincerely, for the cite.


Cheers,


PH


________________________________
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu <religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> 
on behalf of Ira Lupu <icl...@law.gwu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 10:19 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: State-sanctioned church "police force"

Why would a large, predominantly white suburban congregation near Birmingham 
need its own police force?

For a related religion clause case, see State v. Celmer, 
http://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1979/80-n-j-405-0.html 
(invalidating on First A grounds "a statutory scheme which grants various 
municipal powers to the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of The United 
Methodist Church.")
[https://justatic.com/v/20170324144953/shared/images/social-media/law.jpg]<http://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1979/80-n-j-405-0.html>

State v. Celmer :: 1979 :: Supreme Court of New Jersey 
...<http://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1979/80-n-j-405-0.html>
law.justia.com
80 n.j. 405 (1979) 404 a.2d 1. state of new jersey, plaintiff-respondent, and 
ocean grove camp meeting association of the united methodist church, intervenor 
...



On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Paul Horwitz 
<phorw...@hotmail.com<mailto:phorw...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Here's a story from the AP. What do you (or, to use the proper and incredibly 
useful grammar of my adopted state, "y'all") think? Is it a quasi-Grendel's Den 
case or something of the sort? A direct Establishment Clause problem insofar as 
it involves granting governmental or quasi-governmental status to a church 
itself? A Kiryas Joel-type case insofar as it grants a governmental privilege 
or status that might or might not be granted to, say, a mosque or some other 
organization? (Not that I'm crazy about that aspect of the Kiryas Joel ruling.) 
Or, insofar as state law allows the state to empower various entities to have 
police forces, is it constitutional because respectful of equal access to 
governmental benefits or privileges?


Paul Horwitz

University of Alabama School of Law


MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – The Alabama Senate has voted to allow a church to form 
its own police force.
Lawmakers on Tuesday voted 24-4 to allow Briarwood Presbyterian Church in 
Birmingham to establish a law enforcement department.
The church says it needs its own police officers to keep its school as well as 
its more than 4,000 person congregation safe.
Critics of the bill argue that a police department that reports to church 
officials could be used to cover up crimes.
The state has given a few private universities the authority to have a police 
force, but never a church or non-school entity.
Police experts have said such a police department would be unprecedented in the 
U.S.
A similar bill is also scheduled to be debated in the House on Tuesday.


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--
Ira C. Lupu
F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus
George Washington University Law School
2000 H St., NW
Washington, DC 20052
301-928-9178 (mobile, preferred)
202-994-7053 (office)
Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of "Secular Government, Religious 
People" ( Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2014))
My SSRN papers are here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg
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