Hundreds of people braved nasty weather this morning during New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s annual State of the City Address — but it wasn’t to hear his speech.
Instead, they were there to make their own statement: Don’t ban churches from meeting in public school buildings. More than 40 people, including several pastors, were led away from the protest in handcuffs — about a half dozen at a time, as the rest of the group prayed and sang.
After the U.S. Supreme Court refused last month to rule on a long-fought case involving a Bronx church that was told it could not meet in a public school building, the city gave the 68 churches still meeting in public schools a Feb. 12 eviction notice. New York is the only city in the nation to take such a step so far; the protesters were there not only to draw attention to their churches’ own plight, but to make sure it doesn’t spread.
“Excluding religious groups … jeopardizes a longstanding cooperation between cities and faith-based groups,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who was at the protest. “If you trace the roots of some of America’s largest churches, like California’s Saddleback, most of them started in rented schoolrooms. Now, it seems a struggling system like New York City’s would rather turn away income than allow for the free exercise of religion.
“New York’s Department of Education has long given congregations the option to hold their weekend services in any one of the city’s empty school buildings provided, of course, they pay to use the facilities — a nice benefit to the cash-strapped public education system.
“By disallowing some groups over others because, in this instance, they are religious, Mayor Bloomberg has engaged in nothing other than viewpoint discrimination.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Learn more about events coming up in New York City concerning this issue.
Read the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the Bronx Household of Faith case.
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