Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

Photo above: In April 2014, Bronx City Councilman Fernando Cabrera (left) stands with members of  Bronx Household of Faith in protest against city policy forbidding churches from renting public school spaces for worship services.  

April 2015 – When Bill de Blasio campaigned in 2013 to become the mayor of New York City, one of his promises was to rescind former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s policy of forbidding churches from renting public school spaces for worship services. However, in January, the de Blasio administration filed a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court arguing in favor of the policy. 

The case began last year when the Bronx Household of Faith lost a case in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled the church had no standing to rent a space in the public school building on Sunday mornings. 

The de Blasio brief said, “The department’s decision to make public schools available to religious organizations for a wide range of activities, but not for worship services or as a house of worship, is constitutional. The policy does not prohibit, limit, or burden any religious practice; does not entangle the government in matters of religion; and does not impair petitioners’ ability to speak freely.”

Jordan Lorence, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, said, “All their legal arguments are wrong.” He went on to argue that the policy of Bloomberg and de Blasio could deny equal access to churches in forums that are open to everyone else.

worldmag.com, 1/15/15