A library in San Francisco has decided to ban Christian groups from using the public meeting rooms. Source

The decision came from a case involving the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries, a Christian group which won a court order allowing them to hold a "prayer, praise and worship" service in meeting rooms open to other groups at a Contra Costa County library branch. A federal judge said it had a First Amendment right of religion to use the public's facilities. But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling in a 2-1 decision. "Prohibiting Faith Center's religious worship services from the Antioch meeting room is a permissible exclusion of a category of speech," Judge Richard Paez ruled.

The ‘Antioch’ room! Antioch was evangelized by my hero, Barnabas, and is where the name ‘Christian’ was first used. It’s considered the cradle of Christianity. Somehow, I think the irony was missed as the Judges threw the Christians out of Antioch.

In dissent, Judge Richard Tallman said the county went too far. "Rather than adopting a policy of neutrality and placing reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on every group that uses the library meeting rooms, the county has gone to great lengths to exclude a non-disruptive community group based on the views it wishes to express," Tallman wrote.

Libraries are goofy places. Back at Iowa State University, the library still has the quote “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” in giant letters across the top of the building. Also at the top just below the saying are the names of many great thinkers throughout history from science, religion, philosophy, math, literature, etc. Seems like a dozen names or so. But the name of the guy that gave us that quote (Jesus Christ) or the reference (John 8:32) do not appear. Seems like plagiarism is bad, except is you are ripping-off Christians. Here, it seems like they want to support community groups, as long as they can exclude Christians specifically. They are not worried about violation of the establishment clause, they just hate Christians.

The Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the church group, called the decision "astounding." The group, he said, would consider appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court or asking the appeals court to reconsider.

Let’s pray they win, and keep religious speech free, even in San Francisco.