August 11, 2005
This is how ridiculous the church-state issue has become in America.
New York city wants to prevent congregations from renting public schools on Sunday mornings for their worship services.
This has always been regarded as a win-win for schools - which receive rental money - and for the congregations, which don't have to pay large amounts of money and acquire land for church buildings.
This is the city of New York's law department that is seeking to ban the mostly Christian congregations from the schools, not some wild-eyed atheist trying to make a point.
Nonreligious groups can and do use the schools, so this is religious discrimination, pure and simple.
Since all taxpayers, religious and nonreligious, must pay for these school buildings, which increasingly do not deliver a proper education, why can't religious taxpayers use the facilities?
It is an outrage and it's bound to be another of those cases that goes to the Supreme Court.
That's one more reason to make sure good justices are put on the bench.
I'm Cal Thomas in Washington.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C. Watch his television show, After Hours with Cal Thomas, on the Fox News Channel, Saturdays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time.
