Library Bans Religious Service

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy-"

"Shhhh! I'm trying to read!"

This was the case in northern California this past week, when a Contra Costa County federal appeals court ruled that a library can ban a church groups from meeting on its premises.

Contrary to sensationalistic headlines, the ruling does not ban prayer in public libraries, but rather bans the use of library space for religious worship services. Lawyers for the church claim their client has been censored, and their First Amendment rights violated. The church group will appeal again, and plans on taking this case all the way to the top.

Like so often, however, there appears to be more to this story than immediately meets the eye. In this case, it turns out that the church in question was not simply interested in quietly praying behind closed library meeting room doors, but rather was interested in meeting at the church for the purposes of evangelism. This, in my mind, changes everything.

Public space should remain that - public space. A public sidewalk is for everyone, and so is the library. But a library serves a specific purpose in our society different than that of another kind of public space, such as a town square or a park. While noisy junior high kids giggling loudly over an anatomy text or running through the stacks can be asked to leave a library, these same kids roughhousing and yelling on a street corner or public park cannot - and should not - be asked to leave. Same for evangelism. Our free speech rights should not be trumped in public places, but in the case of the library, a patron's right to read, undisturbed, trumps the right of an evangelist to disturb them.

That being said, I see no reason why a church group should be denied access to booking meeting rooms at a library, provided all groups religious and otherwise, play by the same rules and have equal access to the space. Anything less is a very slippery slope. What constitutes a religion should not be defined by the government, much less any podunk town library, and, banning "religious" groups lays the framework for banning other groups. Could a meditation group be denied access? What about an astrology or role-playing group?

What do you think?