St. Paul, USA - An evangelical Christian group is suing the city's public school district in a bid to overturn its ban on religious fliers, contending that the First Amendment gives it the same right as Boy Scout troops and Little League teams that distribute recruitment material at schools.
While administrators acknowledge the district's ban on materials of a sectarian nature, a school lawyer said the district's opposition to the St. Paul Area Evangelicals' flier is that it asks parents to take their children out of class each week.
The evangelical group runs Crossroads Ministries, which for 50 years has offered Bible classes to students. It relies on a Minnesota law that allows parents to release their children from school up to three hours a week for religious education. Some schools in the district had allowed distribution in past years, according to the lawsuit, but the district now restricts access completely.
Jordan Lorence, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian civil rights group representing the churches, said if the district has a problem allowing students to use in-school time for religious education, it should take up the issue with the state Legislature.
Jeff Lalla, attorney for the school district, said groups like the Boy Scouts or sports leagues are allowed to advertise on school grounds because their programs aren't held during school hours. Just because state law allows students to miss school for religious instruction programs, "that doesn't mean we have to advertise that they're available," Lalla said.