[Publib] Supreme Court & church meeting in library

[Robert L. Balliot]

Greetings,

 

This makes sense to me.  As far as separation of Church & State, it seems
that by

not restricting, you are not endorsing nor condemning a particular religion
and you are

also providing the opportunity for free speech in a common space.

 

The only thing that it seems could reasonably be restricted would be those
practices 

which are in violation of the law.  Several things come to my mind in
various religions

that would apply.

 

On the other hand, I think that it could cause problems for a library if the
religion and

speech evokes strong negative feelings from various segments of the
community. But,

that is part of the price for supporting freedom of speech. Sometimes there
are

consequences.  I had the opportunity to bring in a local expert to give a
lecture on 

the fundamentals of Islam.  We included an excellent poster display for
about two weeks

that had also been hosted at MIT.  It was a fantastic opportunity for the
community

to learn about an aspect of human society.  Some of the conversation from
the

community and speaker was biased, but there was a conversation.

 

Also, I think that non-commercial speech should have priority in a
non-profit setting

since the idea of the common space revolves around non-profit educational
and

cultural opportunities.  The problem with that comes with defining what is
for

profit and what is not.  From the standpoint of incorporation, non-profit
tax status

is fairly well-defined and tax exempt status my be the only fair benchmark.

 

However, from my own perspective, I think that some religions, institutions,

and non-profit educational entities can be fundamentally for profit and base
their

activities on the generation of revenue rather than a mission of public
service.

 

*************************************************

Robert L. Balliot

1-401-421-5763

Skype: RBalliot

Bristol, Rhode Island

http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm

*************************************************

  _____  

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Dale McNeill
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 3:12 PM
To: Diedre Conkling
Cc: PUBLIB
Subject: Re: [Publib] Supreme Court & church meeting in library

 

As far back as 1990, I worked in a large county library system.  We did a
review of all our policies and procedures with (among others) one of the
county attorneys.  At that time, the library meeting room policies said that
the public rooms could not be used for partisan political events, personal
events (birthday parties, for example), or religious events.  Even then our
attorney advised us that should the library have been sued, she did not feel
the county attorney's office could take the case; they would just have to
settle, as (upon review with her colleagues) they felt that free speech and
free assembly in public places could not be limited in this way.  We allowed
groups not affiliated with the library to meet only 4 times a year, so she
(the attorney) couldn't see that any religious group might be established at
the library.  

Our polices were changed to be almost what Diedre describes, except that we
also allowed meetings at which items were sold, as commercial speech is
still speech.

I must say it made scheduling the meeting room a lot easier.  And it made it
a lot easier to explain that the library did not judge the content of ANY
meeting.  

NOTE:  The above is not *my* opinion.  It's my recollection of a series of
meetings with the attorney more than 15 years ago.  I know that most
libraries have more restrictive policies and that most have counsel willing
to defend those more restrictive policies.  However, it is a good idea to
review such library policies with counsel from time to time. 

Dale



 

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