ROCKVILLE - The one-page flier seems fairly routine, with its towheaded cartoon character cheerily inviting elementary school kids to join the after-school Good News Club.
It was the finer print, though, the part that described the time that would be spent hearing Bible stories and memorizing Scripture, that led the Montgomery County schools to ban it from being sent home in pupils' backpacks.
That action has sparked a court case that will soon be reviewed by a federal appeals court. The case has drawn wide interest, including that of the Justice Department, which is siding with the evangelical Christian group that sponsors the club.
After being told that teachers couldn't pass out the informational fliers - despite a longstanding practice of doing that for many other nonprofit groups - the Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland sued the public schools claiming the group was being unfairly denied access to its potential clientele because of its religious bent.
Montgomery County officials, meanwhile, argue the ban is an attempt to follow the intent of the U.S. Constitution's establishment clause, which has served as a wall separating government and religion. By being forced to hand out religious fliers, school attorneys argue, teachers become unwitting missionaries.
"This isn't the only case of its kind," said Steven C. Sheinberg, assistant director of legal affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, which has filed a brief supporting Montgomery County's position. "There's a big national fight going on. You can see that all around the country, courts are taking different points of view. This is just the sort of thing that finds its way to the Supreme Court."
Good News Clubs, described in the disputed flier as meeting weekly "to hear Bible stories, play games, sing songs, and memorize Scripture," have chapters in two Montgomery County schools: Clearspring Elementary in Damascus and Mill Creek Towne Elementary in Rockville. The school system had given permission to the group to use school facilities for its meetings after school hours.
The trouble began in 2001 when Child Evangelism Fellowship asked Mill Creek Towne to include a permission slip with other information to be sent home to parents. The school system rejected the group's recruitment flier, even though the group is allowed to hand out brochures at back-to-school nights and at parent meetings.
CEF sued the school system in January in U.S. District Court. In April, a judge denied the group's request to immediately force the schools to start distributing the fliers. In May, CEF appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are set for the end of September, attorneys said.
The school system limits what materials can be sent home with pupils to those related to education and notices about health, nonprofit organizations, community sports, and recreation activities and day care, according to the school system. This has included such organizations as the Salvation Army, YMCA and the Jewish Community Center - all organizations with religious roots but, in those instances, advertising nonreligious events.
"Essentially, the Good News Club seeks to have teachers and students act as their agents for their proselytizing efforts, and the school system believes that violates the separation of church and state doctrine," said Eric C. Brousaides, an attorney representing the school system.
An integral part of CEF's evangelical mission, Brousaides and colleague Judith S. Bresler write in court documents, is "to locate children who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior." Assisting in that is not part of the school system's mission, they write.
The fliers would be put in the hands of very young children who might assume a teacher is endorsing one religion over another, they argue. Supporters of the fliers dispute that, saying they are meant to be given to parents who know the difference - and who would have to sign the attached permission slip before a child could actually attend one of the meetings.
The courts have been split over the issue of flier distribution, with some ruling that school systems must allow religious groups equal access.
School districts have also chosen different paths. When the Fairfax County school board in Virginia encountered a similar complaint, members rewrote their policy, saying religious groups would be given whatever access to children that other groups are given.
"We believe once a school district opens a forum as it has done in this case ... then government ought not be in the business of viewpoint censorship, which is what they're doing in this case," said Nathan A. Adams IV, chief litigation counsel for the Annandale, Va.-based Christian Legal Society and CEF's attorney in this case.
"Their argument is: We have a forum here, but we don't have to admit people like you."
The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the fellowship's position. Attorneys there cited a 2001 Supreme Court decision that reversed a decision denying Good News Clubs the right to use public schools after school hours, saying there was no establishment clause violation. The Justice Department has sided with the Good News Clubs in three similar cases during the Bush administration.
"We're upholding the law and the ruling by the Supreme Court," said Jorge Martinez, a spokesman for the department.
Sheinberg of the Anti-Defamation League said the Montgomery County case shouldn't be governed by that Supreme Court ruling.
"In the Good News Club case, you had a religious organization that wanted to use school property after school hours. This is a different beast," he said. "In this case, it's not just a use of the facility after school hours. ... This case is about using schools to deliver messages to children and parents, and that's very different."