Court Strikes Down Contra Costa’s Worship Ban
A federal district court barred Contra Costa County (Calif.) Library from enforcing its ban on religious services in its meeting room June 19, overturning a 2006 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed the library to bar the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries from holding services there.
Judge Jeffrey White, who granted the 2005 injunction against the library’s ban on religious services, ruled this time that the county could not legally prohibit prayer services while allowing religious discussion because it did not have a way to distinguish between the two without creating an “excessive government entanglement with religion,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported June 23. Groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, in which members ask for aid from a higher power in overcoming addiction, have been permitted to hold meetings in the library.
Challenges by religious groups to library meeting room policies have been a frequent occurrence for at least a decade. Last year, the Clermont County (Ohio) Public Library board of trustees voted to limit the use of meeting rooms to library-run programs after being sued by a coalition of religious-rights attorneys for refusing to allow a financial-planning seminar because presenters intended to quote scripture.
The injunction against the ban on worship will take effect July 6. County officials have not yet responded to media inquiries as to whether the decision will be appealed.
—Greg Landgraf, American Libraries Online Posted on June 24, 2009.