The majority reports that the District "properly" conceded that the flyers
contained "no evangelical or overtly religious language." Why is this
relevant? If the court's theory is an absence of coercion, than should not
even "evangelical or overtly religious" literature be permitted? {The Ninth
Circuit in the Scottsdale case similarly held that overtly religious flyers
could be excluded form a distribution program.)
Marc Stern-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 6:29 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Child Evangelism Fellowship v. Montgomery County I'm puzzled by Judge Michael's "coercion" argument: "The Establishment Clause forbids a state from coercing 'anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise.' If the Montgomery County Public Schools (the School System) give Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland, Inc. (CEF) access to the School System's take-home flyer forum, elementary students will be required to distribute CEF's religious flyers to their parents. The students, in other words, will be coerced to participate in a religious activity in violation of the Establishment Clause." The students wouldn't be asked to say anything religious, or endorse religion -- they'd be asked to deliver a piece of paper, something no different than a postman would do when told to deliver religious materials. If the postman can be required to deliver religious materials alongside everyone else without this being unconstitutional coercion -- presumably because he's being required to engage in a secular task, the delivery of mail, even though the mail happens to be religious -- then why would the child be any different? (See the majority, note 8.) Nor does it matter, I think, that these are impressionable elementary school students. Why would even a 9-year-old, when told to bring a flyer to his parents, wrongly but reasonably feel this to be a religious exercise? Eugene _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
