Fla. library: No religious use of our meeting rooms

ORLANDO, Fla. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a lawsuit Thursday against the New Smyrna Beach Public Library on behalf of a man who was prohibited from reserving a public meeting room for a “Religion in America” seminar. Library policy forbids religious uses of meeting rooms.

“Christian groups shouldn’t be excluded and denied access to public meeting rooms because of their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster. “Having a policy explicitly designed to exclude religious groups from meeting in public facilities is blatantly unconstitutional.”

New Smyrna Beach Public Library officials rejected Anthony Verdugo’s application to reserve a meeting room for a seminar to be presented by the Christian Coalition entitled “Religion in America,” which was set to address current social issues in our nation from a biblical perspective. ADF attorneys argue in the suit that the library is in violation of the First and 14th Amendments by rejecting Verdugo’s request and enforcing a policy prohibiting the religious use of its public meeting rooms.

The lawsuit, Verdugo v. New Smyrna Beach Public Library, was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida-Orlando.

An Osceola County library refused to allow the same seminar in one of its public meeting rooms, resulting in a separate lawsuit that ADF attorneys filed in November.

In a similar case, ADF attorneys secured a court order in June 2009 preventing a California public library from banning a Christian group from its public meeting room. In the suit Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover, the court ruled that Contra Costa County officials cannot ban meetings it labels “religious services” at the Antioch Branch Library. In addition, ADF attorneys worked together with officials in the city of Richmond, Calif., and town of Elk River, Minn., to rectify similarly problematic policies that prohibited religious meetings in their community centers.

ADF is also representing a New York City church that is fighting to be allowed to continue renting a public school facility for its religious services. In Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, city officials are violating the church’s constitutional rights by denying it rental access to public school buildings based strictly on the fact that it is a church.

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

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