The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) won a temporary restraining order against a New York ruling that bans churches from renting public schools.

The stay puts off the  eviction for 10 days while the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York takes another look at the case and reconsiders the constitutional arguments concerning NY City’s unique prohibition against allowing churches to rent vacant public school buildings and hold worship services on weekends.

ADF is seeking to stop the evictions based on potential violations of the First Amendment. An issue that had not been ruled on before in the original case. In response, the court issued a stay for the following reasons:

“the Plaintiffs have demonstrated irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits of their Free Exercise and Establishment Clause claims.”

Meanwhile, the New York State legislature is also working on a remedy for the city policy which is threatening to make over 60 churches homeless in NY City.

The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case in December which left an earlier court ruling against the churches intact. Now the District Court is taking another look at the case and in the mean time the churches are safe for now.

Response: This is a story that is not going to fade quietly into the night. The 60 churches are actually active in their local communities and most of them are ministering in poor areas.

The potential shut down of these poor community churches has caused quite a controversy but the stubborn NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg refuses to back down. It should be remembered that the rather secular Bloomberg also refused to allow any prayers or religious representation at the official 10year ‘memorial’ of 9-11-01.

We will continue to follow this story as it develops. The case is important since it has become so visible and may be used as a test case against thousands of churches all around the nation which are currently renting space in public schools on the weekends. Therefore, the ADF is not just fighting for the 60 churches in NYC.              *Top

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