Evidence of Frivolity

The Twin Cities' religious left is standing up for the right of the church to impose its will on the rest of the state of Minnesota.

The Strib:

Does [the language on the "Concealed Weapons Banned In This Building" signs] interfere with the freedom of religion?

It was a central point of debate in a Hennepin County courtroom Monday as the state faced a challenge to its updated but still-controversial gun law.

The case, which also focuses on whether religious institutions may ban guns in their parking lots or in their buildings while being used by tenants, is making its second run in the court system. A similar challenge was brought against a 2003 version of the law, but arguments about the religious questions still lingered when a Ramsey County judge ruled that the law was improperly passed by the Legislature.

Hennepin Judge Marilyn Brown Rosenbaum ruled that the old law shouldn't apply to religious institutions. A similar law was signed this year.

The Strib report glosses over a few details of the Brown Rosenbaum ruling, which I reported on two years ago:

She issued a restraining order allowing churches to use non-state-approved wording, typeface and print size in advising worshippers not to bring guns to church. This was the tempest that the Edina Community Lutheran Church (which numbers, among its many well-heeled DFL worshippers, former US Attorney and DFL Gubernatorial hopeful David Lillehaug, who was back at work doing the party's bidding in this case) yanked out of the teapot.

Here's the nub of the gyst: lawyers for a couple of well-heeled, clout-heavy, fashionably old-money Minnesota-lefty churches want to change the law passed by the peoples' representatives to match their peculiar, pointillistic, seemingly abiblical notion of intraparish communication:

Attorneys for two Twin Cities churches asked Judge LaJune Lange to issue a temporary injunction against some of the law's requirements as they apply to religious institutions.

David Lillehaug, attorney for the Edina Community Lutheran Church, and Marshall Tanick, representing the Unity Church of St. Paul, argued that requirements to put up signs using a specific size, typeface and language were infringing on the churches' religious messages. Such requirements make the state an editor over the churches' message, Lillehaug argued.

Question for Darth Lillehaug: Are churches allowed to change the wording on their Handicapped Parking signs to match some roepenumbrial [1] biblical stricture? Are they allowed to edit that into, say, tongues?

How about the "Mininmum Wage" poster that the church must display somewhere that employees congregate, if they have paid employees? The OSHA-mandated wording on their cleaning solvents?

Wordings on these sorts of things exist to eliminate ambiguities, whether in safety or legal matters. If churches are allowed to fiddle with the wording of the notices - or with their placement, or to not place the notice at all - it could have the effect of causing me to inadvertently criminalize myself, should I carry a concealed, permitted handgun onto their premises, just as if they were to translate their handicapped parking notices into Koine Greek so they could rack up parking fines from parishioners who only spoke Aramaic and Latin.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Ragatz argued that the law mandates that those signs contain state language and also allows churches to add religious language. He said that using the state-mandated, religiously neutral words is not a substantial burden and does not cause irreparable harm, two legal standards the churches must prove to get the injunction.

Next - the Champions of the Overprivileged want to impose their well-heeled, smug faith on everyone!

Lillehaug and Tanick argued that religious institutions shouldn't be prohibited from banning guns in parking lots, either. Those areas are used to further religious missions when people talk about services on the way to their cars or when a church holds an event in a parking lot, they argued.

Where does that stop?

Speaking as a Christian - nothing in our society protects us from being offended. And while a church may argue that guns have no place in a sanctuary during a service (which I'd respect by never attending the church), nothing about the law-abiding exercise of ones right to carry a concealed handgun impinges in any way, much less in the form of "irreparable harm", the ability of people to discuss religious services as they walk to their cars.

If the judge buys this, it will be time to storm the courthouse with pitchforks.

Oh, yeah - and the law is already way ahead of the Champions of the Well-Heeled:

Ragatz argued that when a church is holding an activity in the parking lot for a religious purpose, it may ban guns under the law.

Lillehaug and Tanick also argued that by not allowing landlords to ban tenants and their visitors from carrying guns, the law burdens religious organizations. Edina Community Lutheran Church lets a day care use its space, for instance. And Unity Church makes space available to be used as a homeless shelter.

Would the homeless be considered temporary tenants from whom the church couldn't ban guns? Tanick asked. Ragatz argued that they would clearly be considered church guests and that gun bans could be enforced.

Yep.

Church homeless shelters aren't allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion, either. Shall churches be allowed to cherrypick which legally-entitled rights they're allowed to express bigotry toward?

By the way, I'm sure this will be a problem, as they deal with the mass of homeless people who have clean criminal records, drivers licenses, $150+ to spend on concealed carry training, $100 for the permit application, and $100-1000 for a pistol. Of this I'm sure. And the homeless who don't have permits, but do have concealed handguns, are already breaking the law.

I'll be watching this, naturally.

[1] Roepenumbrial: Adjective: A right, tradition or stricture conjured from the whole cloth for self-serving reasons. From the "penumbra" found in the "Roe v. Wade" court decision.

Posted by Mitch at August 23, 2005 06:19 PM | TrackBack