New York argued in Good News that Lamb's Chapel involved (to put the point in its most nearly coherent form) speech on a secular topic from a religious perspective, but Good News involved speech that was purely religious and akin to worship. I assume they were running the same argument in Bronx Household of Faith. The Second Circuit opinion in Good News did not even cite Lamb's Chapel, even though one of the three judges (the author of the Good News opinion I think, but don't remember for sure) had been on the Lamb's Chapel panel.) Scalia had fun asking sarcastic questions about that at oral argument.
Douglas Laycock University of Texas Law School 727 E. Dean Keeton St. Austin, TX 78705 512-232-1341 (phone) 512-471-6988 (fax) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Brayton Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 11:12 AM To: Religionlaw list Subject: Bronx Household of Faith v New York Schools The US District Court for the Southen District of New York recently granted summary judgement for the plaintiffs in this case and I'm a little baffled by how it has taken so long to reach even this point (with, presumably, more appeals to come). The story goes like this: in 1994, this church inquired about renting a public school facility in New York to hold church services on Sundays. The school district denied their request, citing their own policy and NY state law prohibiting the renting of facilities for the purpose of religious worship, and the church filed suit. The same judge that just ruled on this case, Judge Loretta Preska, granted a summary judgement in favor of the school district in 1996, saying that the school had created a "limited public forum" and that its rules were "reasonable and related to a legitimate government interest." The appeals court affirmed that judgement in 1997 and the Supreme Court refused cert in 1998. Fast forward to the Good News Club case, with the same results as this case in the district court and the appeals court, but then reversed in 2001 by the Supreme Court. The church tried again to rent the space, was again denied, again filed suit and this time the same judge has granted summary judgement in favor of the church. Here are my questions regarding this: 1. Isn't is unusual for a judge to issue summary judgement in a case like this, particularly the first time around? It seems to me that the case law was against the school district even in 1994, at least arguably so, and therefore summary judgement would be the worst way to handle it. 2. I don't understand the rulings in favor of the school district, particularly granted via summary judgement, in light of Lamb's Chapel v Center Moriches, which was decided in 1993 and dealt directly with New York state law regulating the use of school facilities after hours, declaring that law to be unconstitutional if it treated a church differently than it treated any other group making a request. And this was a unanimous ruling, for crying out loud. Why did the district and appeals courts not apply Lamb's Chapel, which seems to me to be more on point than Good News Club in this case, and rule for the church the first time around? Ed Brayton _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
