Supreme Court hears arguments
in after-school Bible club case
___By Kenny Byrd
___ABP Washington Bureau
___WASHINGTON (ABP)--U.S. Supreme Court justices recently heard oral arguments in a dispute over whether a Christian youth organization should be allowed to meet with children directly after school hours in an upstate New York public school.
___While the high court has before ruled in favor of religious groups using school facilities to discuss secular topics from a religious perspective, this case raises new questions.
___In 1996, the Good News Club--affiliated with a Christian missionary organization known as Child Evangelism Fellowship--applied 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, Milford School District officials said the proposed activities were not merely discussion of secular subjects from a religious perspective, but "were in fact the equivalent of religious instruction itself."
___The Milford Board of Education denied the application, and the club filed a complaint with a U.S. district court in 1997. After appeals, the case reached the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with the school.
___Arguing before the Supreme Court for the school district. Frank Miller said that events of the Good News Club amount to religious worship, which is not allowed under district policy. "We have the school in effect utilized as a church," Miller said.
___But the Good News Club attorney, Thomas Marcelle, asked why other groups that teach moral instruction, like the 4-H Club and the Boy Scouts, may use the school while the Christian group cannot.
___"This is a free-speech case," Marcelle said. "We're not asking for unique access, just equal access." He said the only children who attend are those whose parents have sent them.
___Justices spent a lot of time discussing what constitutes "religious worship."
___Associate Justice David Souter said the program appears to be religious worship similar to a Sunday School class.
___But Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said, "Teaching the Scripture, teaching what the Scripture has to say about morality, I think it's a great distortion to call that religious worship, even if you do throw in a prayer or two."
___Chief Justice William Rehnquist agreed, saying, "It certainly isn't religious worship in the way most people would think of it."
___And Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said, "Sounds like you're discriminating in free-speech terms against religion."
___Other justices seemed troubled by the age of the children involved.
___"Isn't the nub of the matter in this case that you're not dealing with college students, you're dealing with grade-school students?" Souter asked. Older students are mature enough to know the school is not endorsing the religion. "In this case you have a bunch of kids who just don't make that distinction," he said.
___Other concerns included the fact that the event, which takes place just as the school day closes, is not student-initiated and is organized by a group of outside adults.
___Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asked why that mattered. "I assume the Girl Scouts are adult-sponsored," she said.
___The case--Good News Club vs. Milford Central School--has highlighted the numerous interpretations of the First Amendment's religion clauses held by religious and civil-liberties advocacy groups. More than a dozen briefs have been filed with the court.
___After the oral arguments, Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, spoke to reporters on the Supreme Court steps. The BJC signed on to an amicus brief in support of the club's right to use the facilities.
___Walker criticized the 2nd Circuit's distinction between clubs discussing secular topics from a religious perspective, which is permitted, and religious instruction and worship, which is not.
___"The free-speech and free-exercise rights of students should not turn on such dubious hair-splitting," Walker said. "The government is uniquely ill-suited to sit as a secular high priest making razor-thin theological distinctions."
___The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission also filed a brief in support of the Good News Club. Also signing the SBC brief were James Dobson's Focus on the Family and Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice.
___But other groups--such as People For the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and some Jewish organizations--have filed briefs in opposition to the Good News Club's use of the facility.
The Baptist Standard
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