PS-150, in Queens, is one of about 50 city schools that still host worship services on Sunday -- but won't after this week. (Fred Mogul/WNYC)
The Bible tells of the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, before entering the Promised Land. On a recent Sunday, Pastor Jon Storck joked that he envied the Israelites’ mobile temple, called the Tabernacle.
"It's too bad we don’t have a transportable worship area," Storck told Grace Fellowship Church, during a sermon about the superiority of faith and grace over bricks, mortar and other worldly attachments.
Grace Fellowship has been gathering at PS-150, in Sunnyside, Queens, since 2006 -- but is scheduled to be evicted in two weeks by the city's Department of Education. The Presbyterian-affiliated church gets about 80 regulars and newcomers a week.
The city rents school space to hundreds of different organizations – including dozens of churches -- but since 1995, the Department of Education has been trying to evict religious groups, in the name of separation of church and state.
The DOE gave the churches until February 12 to vacate. Last week, the DOE provided a list of 53 churches with active permits to worship in schools, but it’s not clear how many are still in auditoriums like the one at PS-150. Some contacted by WNYC have already found new homes, and others are weighing different options for the future.
Court rulings have gone back and forth. Last June, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the city. The court said the city, in barring “worship services,” was excluding “a type of activity” but wasn’t being discriminatory. And it ruled the city was neither infringing on personal expression nor free speech under the First Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in December, effectively accepted that argument, when it declined to hear an appeal.
State Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) has sponsored a bill he says will override the distinction between religious clubs meeting in schools for education and edification, which is Constitutional, and religious congregations making schools their own personal worship space, which isn't.
The Education Committee passed his bill by a 17-1 margin earlier this week, and Golden expects it to go to the full Senate before the churches’ February 12 eviction deadline.
A spokeswoman for his counterpart in the Assembly, Nelson Castro (D-Bronx), said they are trying to get the bill on their committee agenda.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office has submitted a letter to the legislature asking it defeat the bill, based on the federal court rulings.
The New York Civil Liberties Union says Golden is missing the point.
“You have a right to pray, of course. You have a right to worship. Freedom of religion is critical,” New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman said. “But freedom for a church to take over a school and convert it to a house of worship is not what our Constitution stands for.”
Storck isn't sure what Grace Fellowship's next move is. He said he has leads on a couple rental spaces in Sunnyside and could also temporarily bring his flock to an affiliated church in nearby Astoria. He’s also considering applying for a permit to use PS-50 in ways that are Constitutionally permitted and don’t involve formal worship.
Fred Mogul has been covering healthcare and medicine for WNYC since 2002. His beat takes him to hospitals, community clinics, doctors offices, health agencies, public schools and research labs across the metropolitan area. His work has appeared on NPR and in the New York Times, Time magazine and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
Comments [3]
This idea that the churchgoers 'take over and dominate' the school on Sundays is false. While I support the NYCLU in most cases, I question their reasoning and motivation on this battle. As far as the argument goes within the law, New York is not establishing a religion by renting the space to churches. The space is available to all religious and non-religious groups. To make the argument that this violates the Constitution is a stretch as the rental process is open to all.
The churchgoers, just like all the others that use the school space over the weekend, come in, set up, do their business, clean up and leave. Even if the students were to know that the church meets there on Sundays, it would be no more confusing to them than going to school in church spaces Monday through Friday, which many of them do as the NY schools don't have space for all the students.
I am a member of Ascension Church in Forest Hills, another church that was planted by Redeemer and a sister church to Grace Fellowship Church. We meet at P.S.101 in Forest Hills each Sunday and have been there for 5 years now. I cordially invite this reporter or the director of the NYCLU to come and visit us on Sundays so that they can get their facts straight. This way, they can see first hand that our church does not "take over" or "dominate" the school facilities on Sundays as there are two other renters that rent space at the school at the same time we meet. We use the facilities for 3-4 hours on Sunday mornings, we pack up, and then we leave. I doubt most students or their families even know we use the school facilities on Sundays. A great example of Ascension not dominating P.S.101 on Sunday was last April during our annual Easterfest. We traditionally organize an Easter Egg hunt after service, which is open to the public and have been very popular with the community over the past 5 years. We've traditionally held it in the gymnasium but last April, one of the other renters, a youth basketball league, would not let us use the gym after service for our Easter egg hunt even though there were no scheduled games that afternoon. Thus, we were relegated to the 2nd floor cafeteria, which is a significantly smaller space. Now, it we were actually able to dominate or take over the school facilities, I don't think we would have allowed ourselves to sent upstairs, especially when the gym was not in use.
Additionally, what I find interesting is that so many people who have been on the other side of this debate frequently cite the concept of separation of church and state that is in our Constitution. However, I would like to make the argument that we are exercising our Constitutional right to exercise our freedom of religion. Also, I make an additional argument that by not allowing our church to rent space, just like any other group is allowed to, the city and Mayor Bloomberg is discriminating against our church and all the other affected religious groups.
What a farce. Churches have been meeting in public schools in NYC for years with ZERO effect on the children that attend those schools. As a former NYC public school student, rest assured that NYC kids do not know nor CARE how the school building is used on Sundays. Kicking out churches, mosques and other religious Sunday tenants out on the street only diminishes available public meeting spaces in NYC. I guess NYC is only for corporations, banks and organizations with mega-millions who can afford to buy up buildings in the city. What a sad state of affairs.
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