Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District

Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384 (1993), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

concerning whether Free Speech Clause

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

of the First Amendment

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

was offended by a school district that refused to allow a church access to school premises to show films dealing with family and child-rearing issues faced by parents. In a unanimous decision, the court concluded that it was.

Summary of case

The case arose in New York, where state law authorized school boards to promulgate regulations for the use of school property outside of school hours. The Lamb's Chapel evangelical

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...

church sought to show a series of family lectures by James Dobson

James Dobson

James Clayton "Jim" Dobson, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder in 1977 of Focus on the Family , which he led until 2003. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesman for conservative social positions in American public life...

on school property. The local board refused on the grounds that the film "appear[ed] to be church related," 508 U.S. at 389, whereafter the church sued. The district court rejected their claims, finding that the school was a limited public forum, and that because "the District had not opened its facilities to organizations similar to Lamb's Chapel for religious purposes, ... the denial ... was viewpoint neutral and, hence, not a violation of the Freedom of Speech Clause." Id. at 389-90. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the matter came before the Supreme Court.

Writing for the court, Justice Byron White

Byron White

Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White won fame both as a football halfback and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until his retirement in 1993...

observed that the courts below missed the point: "That all religions and all uses for religious purposes are treated alike ... does not answer the critical question whether it discriminates on the basis of to permit school property to be used for the presentation of all views about family issues and child rearing except those dealing with the subject matter from a religious standpoint." The subject of the films was permitted; the viewpoint was the problem: "[the] exhibition was denied solely because the series dealt with the subject from a religious standpoint." As a result, the decision was viewpoint discrimination and could not withstand scrutiny.

Three justices concurred in the judgment. The court had, in passing, invoked Lemon v. Kurtzman

Lemon v. Kurtzman

Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Pennsylvania's 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools for the salaries of teachers who...

, and the concurring justices wrote to express concern. Justice Scalia, in one of his best-known opinions, wrote:

Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six feet under: Our decision in Lee v. Weisman
Lee v. Weisman
Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 , was a United States Supreme Court decision regarding school prayer. It was the first major school prayer case decided by the Rehnquist Court. It involved prayers led by religious authority figures at public school graduation ceremonies...

conspicuously avoided using the supposed "test" but also declined the invitation to repudiate it. Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart (the author of today's opinion repeatedly), and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so.

The secret of the Lemon test's survival, I think, is that it is so easy to kill. It is there to scare us (and our audience) when we wish it to do so, but we can command it to return to the tomb at will. When we wish to strike down a practice it forbids, we invoke it; when we wish to uphold a practice it forbids, we ignore it entirely. Sometimes, we take a middle course, calling its three prongs 'no more than helpful signposts.' Such a docile and useful monster is worth keeping around, at least in a somnolent state; one never knows when one might need him. (Citations omitted.)

Summary of case

See also