July 7, 2004
The three-judge panel of a federal appeals court has ruled that an evangelical group's plan to distribute fliers to students in Maryland elementary schools is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
That decision reverses a lower court ruling blocking the access of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) of Maryland to the Montgomery County Schools' take-home flier program. CEF is a respected national organization that has provided its "Good News Clubs" program for more than 60 years, offering Bible stories, songs, games and other fun activities for children. The program does not allow any child to participate without parental permission.
A lower court had barred CEF of Maryland from giving literature to students inviting them to attend after-school Good News Club activities, even though other community organizations were allowed to circulate their fliers freely through the program. The school district regularly distributed informational material for sports groups, the Boy and Girl Scouts, and various performing arts, health, child care and environmental groups while denying the CEF group the same privilege.
Greg Baylor is director of the Virginia-based Christian Legal Society Center for Law and Religious Freedom, which filed suit on behalf of CEF. He says school district officials apparently thought that the First Amendment -- that part of it called the Establishment Clause -- required them to discriminate against the club.
The school district allowed fliers from the local Jewish community center and the Holy Redeemer Summer Play School with no problem. However, district officials refused the same access to CEF, saying the flier program was not open to what it called "proselytization or evangelical groups."
However, Baylor says, the federal appeals court judges ruled that "the Establishment Clause does not require discrimination against religion." And he adds, "in fact, they pointed to other parts of the First Amendment, the free speech clause in particular, to conclude that the school district had to give [the Christian club] the same treatment that other community groups were allowed to have."
The attorney notes that the Fourth Circuit Court was not really going out on a limb in reaching its conclusion. He says the judges "were relying upon a number of Supreme Court precedents that say government must treat religious speech the same as nonreligious speech."
On June 30 the Fourth Circuit appeals court voted two-to-one that the Maryland school district's flier distribution policy amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, and that constitutional precedent required that the CEF group should receive equal treatment. The case will return to Maryland's federal district court for further proceedings.
Baylor feels the CEF v. Montgomery County Public Schools ruling sends a strong message to other public school systems around the U.S. that "Discrimination is going to be challenged and it's going to be challenged successfully," he says. The attorney adds hopefully that this decision "affirms the public schools important responsibility to respect the diverse religious viewpoints of the community they serve," including citizens' right of equal access for religious speech.
© 2004 Agape Press.
