[OPLINLIST] FW: [ala-ifc] Fwd: SFGate: East Bay church's plea rejected by U.S. Supreme Court

[Kent Oliver]

FYI, Kent

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Subject: [ala-ifc] Fwd: SFGate: East Bay church's plea rejected by U.S. Supreme Court


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This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/02/BAEASHRGB.DTL
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Tuesday, October 2, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
East Bay church's plea rejected by U.S. Supreme Court
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer


   The U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal Monday by a church that argued its religious freedom had been violated when it was barred from holding worship services in a meeting room of the Contra Costa County library in Antioch.
   In a separate case, the court denied a hearing to two Oakland employees who said the city had abridged their freedom of speech by removing a flyer they had posted promoting the "natural family" after other city workers founded a Gay and Lesbian Employees Association.
   Conservative organizations joined the plaintiffs in both cases in urging the high court to grant reviews. The justices denied the appeals without comment on the first day of their 2007-08 term.
   In the library case, the court left intact a September 2006 ruling by a federal appeals court in San Francisco that said Contra Costa County was entitled to deny use of a community meeting room for prayer services by the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries.
   "The county has a legitimate interest in ... excluding meeting room activities that may interfere with the library's primary function as a sanctuary for reading, writing and quiet contemplation," and in preventing the room from being "transformed into an occasional house of worship," the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling.
   Meeting rooms at the library on West 18th Street in Antioch have been used by community and political groups, including the Sierra Club and a local Democratic Party chapter. The county initially banned all religious activities in the rooms but modified its rules in December 2004, after the Faith Center filed suit to allow religious discussions. Worship services are still prohibited, however.
   A federal judge ruled in favor of the church in May 2005 and issued a preliminary injunction against the county's policy, but no prayer meetings were held during the appeal.
   The Bush administration entered the case on the side of the church in the fall of 2005, saying in written arguments to the appeals court that a policy allowing social and political groups to meet at the library, but barring worship services, violated the religious group's freedom of expression.
   "Hymns and prayer are expressions among believers, and to observers, of their common faith," the Justice Department said in its brief to the Ninth Circuit. The administration did not file arguments with the Supreme Court.
   A lawyer for the church said Monday that he would present additional arguments in lower courts to try to get prayer services into the library room.
   The appeals court ruling "treats private religious expression as second-class speech," said attorney Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund.
   The Oakland suit was filed by two employees who founded a religious club, called the Good News Employee Association, in response to the formation of the Gay and Lesbian Employees Association in 2002.
   The two employees, Regina Regerford and Robin Christy, put up a flyer on a bulletin board in January 2003 announcing formation of a "forum for people of faith" to express their views "with respect for the natural family, marriage and family values."
   A supervisor in the city's Community and Economic Development Department removed the flyer in response to an employee's complaint, saying it contained homophobic statements in violation of Oakland's ban on anti-gay harassment in city employment.
   Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker dismissed a lawsuit by the two employees in 2005, saying the women had other means of communicating their views, such as talking to co-workers during lunch breaks.
   The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Walker's ruling in March, saying government agencies can restrict free speech in the workplace to maintain "the efficient operation of their office." The court noted that Regerford and Christy had not been punished and had been given the opportunity to submit a flyer with different wording. They declined to do so.
   An attorney from the Pro-Family Law Center, which filed the employees' Supreme Court appeal, was unavailable for comment. But attorney Kevin Snider of the Pacific Justice Institute, one of several conservative organizations that urged the court to review the case, said the ruling against the two women allowed Oakland to engage in "viewpoint discrimination, by excluding perspectives from one group deemed unpopular while allowing unfettered expression of other views."

   The cases are Faith Center vs. Glover, 06-1633, and Good News Employee Association vs. Hicks, 06-1619. E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko at sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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