Sneaky Christians with Good Lawyers

I found another case of religious freedom that went down in Williamsburg/James-City County, which is coincidentally where I go to school at William and Mary in Virginia. So here's the rundown.

A Christian prayer club called the Good News Club (GNC) wanted to hold its meetings at the local DJ Montague Elementary School. The school allowed them to use the facility, but as the Good News Club was not a school sponsored club, the school followed their established policy of charging the organization $12.50 per hour to use their facilities.

So from March to June of the 2007-2008 school year, GNC paid about $250.00 dollars for use of classrooms to hold their prayer meetings. When GNC found out that the school exempted some organizations from payment, they freaked out and claimed they too deserved exemption from fees.

The school's policy exempts the following groups from payment: 1) Any James City County Government agency. 2) all school sponsored groups and activities. 3) Organizations deemed "patriotic" under the Code of Virginia and the No Child Left Behind Act. 4) Specific events run by local charitable foundations 5) Activities sponsored by school partners where there is a written partnership agreement.

As you can see, the School covered its bases when it crafted this policy. In fact, it specified religious organizations as "other" groups which are not exempt from fees.

So the Child Evangelism Fellowship of Virginia, on behalf of the GNC, filed for an injunction to force the school to waive the fees. To gain this injunction, the GNC had to prove that paying the $250.00 dollars the school charged in fees caused "irreparable harm." Plaintiffs claimed they suffered irreparable harm of two types, financial and constitutional. Here we go...

This is where the GNC starts to bullshit. First of all, it costs $350.00 just to file the motion, which is 100 dollars MORE than the fee that is supposedly causing them "irreparable harm."

But the court ultimately agreed with the Christians' argument that such fees constituted a violation of their religious freedoms, because the school's decision to charge them was based solely on the fact that they were a religious group, which violates the establishment clause in the 1st amendment.

The Judge reasoned that the school's policy empowered the superintendent to choose which organizations would be exempted without setting forth any concrete standards about how to do so.

In a press release, The Liberty Counsel, the Child Evangelism Fellowship of Virginia's parent organization, said, "after-school Good News Clubs teach children respect, good citizenship, moral values and character development from a biblical perspective." I think that this decision is ok, and actually the sign of a healthy religious environment in this country, so long as this club is not a smokescreen for teaching kids that abortion is wrong, God endorses the Iraq War, and gays shouldn't be allowed to marry. A lot of the Liberty Counsel's work does focus on these perverse objectives, but this seems like a case of genuine freedom to practice religion.

Court decisions should strike a balance between the rights of individuals to express their religion, and the rights of other individuals to be protected from the excesses of these expressions.

As a matter of law, this case seems pretty clear cut. The school's policy is designed to exempt organizations that facilitate the growth of students' character, moral competency, and understanding of the world. In my opinion, religion is not the best way to facilitate that type of growth. However, it's a completely subjective matter of opinion and personal viewpoint what constitutes good morals and an accurate understanding of the world.