This Disturbs Me

[EthnAlln]

Can anybody with legal experience tell me if it violates separation of church and state to have a church congregation worshipping and holding prayer meetings for adults in a public school?

I refer to the following case:

http://rgcvt.org/

I'm sure that if they use the place rent-free, that is a violation, unless an atheist group could do the same. But it really looks to me like this is a state promotion of religion. This is a newly formed congregation, and the state is helping it get started by providing taxpayer-funded facilities. I'm conflicted here, since I like to promote community, and letting people feel that they have a stake in the public schools, if only to have a meeting place, is a good thing. I'm not sure what I could do in any case, since to the people in Milton I'm an outsider from the big city (Burlington, with a population of some 30,000, is the largest of Vermont's 11 cities).

[sea star]

As long as it is outside of school hours, and other community groups are allowed the same access, there is not a legal issue. The school doesn't have to charge rent, as long as they don't charge any other group.

The test would be to ask the school if you can have your freethought group meet there.

[Toto]

Legal groups funded by the usual right wing millionaires have forced the issue, and have forced all public schools to offer space to church groups on the same terms as other non-religious groups.

Your freethought group could probably meet there too. But does your freethought group require eveyone to pay 10% of their income to the pastor-organizer, so someone has the motivation to request the space? Does the leader of your freethought group get a major tax break for his "housing allowance?"

I notice this from that web site:

Worship With Us
Every Sunday, 10:00am at Milton Elementary School.

Please take note: We have been granted a temporary meeting location at the Milton High School until the mold problem at the Elementary School is resolved, click "Find Us" above or click here for directions. Praise God for his goodness!

Praise God for mold? Praise God for generous taxpayers? :banghead:

[Dick Springer]

I have the perfect solution to the problem in Milton, VT. The church could meet at the Coventry Club and Resort, a nudist resort in Milton. It would have the advantage that it would prepare parishoners for the rapture, when all their clothes are left behind. Being surrounded by all the nudists at the resort would condition them to the sight of naked bodies; after all, after the rapture all the saved would be naked.

[EthnAlln]

I have the perfect solution to the problem in Milton, VT. The church could meet at the Coventry Club and Resort, a nudist resort in Milton. It would have the advantage that it would prepare parishoners for the rapture, when all their clothes are left behind. Being surrounded by all the nudists at the resort would condition them to the sight of naked bodies; after all, after the rapture all the saved would be naked.

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

Thanks for the information. I have decided that as an outsider I have no standing to challenge anything that goes on in Milton, and from what I've learned in these posts, the case wouldn't get anywhere anyway.

These guys are slightly weird. I didn't even know they existed until I helped a co-worker move on Friday. She belongs to the same group (New England Theological Seminary) that set up this church. They are very nice people, but they kept talking about "what the Lord has in mind for us to do tonight." Most people I know, even devout Christians, think a lot of effort has to go into figuring out the proper Christian response to a situation. Not these people; they apparently consult God the same way other people use a Blackberry (not that I myself know how to use one).

[Seeker630]

I don't remember the name of the decision, but it seems to me that within the last couple of years or so there was a Supreme Court case that upheld the practice of a school district allowing the "Good News" Bible clubs to meet in school buildings after hours, as long as other groups in the community had similar access. The case was someplace in New York state.

Also---even though I'm not comfortable with such situations, I have to admit that the people in that church group are probably mostly local taxpayers in that school district. I looked at their scheduled events and everything is either off-hours from the school day, or on the weekend when no one else would be there anyway.

I have to say that I am not accustomed to seeing things like this. Before I came to IIDB I never knew that such things occured. I am originally from Michigan, and in all my years as a student and later as a parent of school-age kids I never remember anything like this going on.

But finally, after I was divorced and had been gone from the marital home for a few years, one of my daughters (she had been a cheerleader in High School) told me that her cheerleading coach marched them all across the street every morning before practice to attend Mass at a Catholic chuch! She never said anything to me about it while she was in school because she was afraid it would cause a row if I went to the school to contest it. To this day she probably doesn't know how right she was. And the hell of it is that I was never contacted by the school to get permission for her to go. I suspect that the X-wife knew and also never said anything.

[Oresta]

My experiences and my kids' in the Detroit Public schools are similar to Seeker's with one exception. One of my daughters attended a middle school that was originally a Catholic Parish school that the DPS had puchased. There was still a large, framed picture of Jesus on the wall of my daughter's classroom. I was visiting the school when I saw it. I went immediately to the office and pointed out the violation of CSS. The "portrait" came down, but there were some faculty members who were not happy about the decision, though they conceeded my point. They just thought it was "nice" that the parish left Jesus there for them.