Alan, there's a difference between public space and the space people pay rent
on. Every chapel I know of falls into the private area (there may be others);
the questions tend to revolve around whether the public spaces of terminals are
truly public like a public street. At O'Hare we had secular war over whether
the Chicago newspapers could put boxes up to sell newspapers outside the
newsstands (airline issue was that newsstands pay very high rents, newspapers
argued they had a First Amendment right to sell anywhere without paying rent .
. .). Many of those issues fell away after the first magnetometers went in,
and I suspect the rest went away after 9/11 and the advent of TSA.
Some airports successfully put up boxes from which the Hare Krishnas could
sing, dance, and ask for converts. I am unaware that any other faiths ever
used the boxes.
I'm working from memory, but my recollection is that the airlines agreed to put
up $200,000 to build and furnish a couple of chapels, nominally under the
direction of a Catholic priest who somehow wangled O'Hare as his area of
influence. One of the questions the airlines had was whether those chapels
would be open to all faiths, and Father Jamnicky assured us they would be.
When I checked later that's what I found.
Generally it's the airport committee of airlines that sets those policies.
Most major airports have a "board" to oversee the administration of the airport
apart from the terminals and runways, and to coordinate activities, and those
boards, made up of people from the community (as at DFW, and MCO if I read that
news article correctly). The community boards generally rubber stamp decisions
of the airport committee, if they do anything at all.
When the suing starts, it's the airlines that bear the burden of costs,
usually. Sometimes those suits are done with coordination of the local
municipality, but the airlines pay the lawyers and are named in the suits.
If Emirates Air has a sizable presence, they may have some influence; I think
most airports would go out of their way to accommodate reasonable requests of
airlines who pay massive landing fees.
All commercial airports in the U.S. are built with bond money, the bonds issued
on guarantee the airlines will be paying rents for a long time -- most of the
agreements are 30-years to start out. European airports are usually
nationally-managed. Canada has a little greater control on the airport, but
the structure is much the same as the U.S.
Airlines are generally too cheap to put up a facility for just one faith.
Would it be constitutional? Probably, but it makes little commercial sense
because of the possibility of offense to someone. Airlines like to keep
customers happy and coming back often. In Orlando (MCO), this seems pretty
clearly a concession for Islam that matches concessions already made to other
faiths.
Maybe we can find some airport people who know better what's going on in Europe
now, and in the Middle East.
I came through Beijing a couple of weeks ago, and I looked for a chapel there,
and found none. Considering how heavily used most of the Buddhist shrines in
China are, as religious practice locations, I thought that a little surprising.
I don't speak Chinese at all, and couldn't find anyone to ask. All other
public spaces I saw have signs of codes of conduct, which prohibit
"superstitious activities."
Perhaps we could all call our local airports, and ask about chapels. We might
discover something that way.
Ed DarrellDallas
From: Alan E Brownstein <aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu>
To: Ed Darrell <edarr...@sbcglobal.net>; Law & Religion issues for Law
Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 3:28 PM
Subject: RE: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport
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{}#yiv6280040225 Ed knows much more about the ownership and management of
airports than I do – although it’s not hard to satisfy that standard. But I
recall several cases where airport governing authorities were sued for
violating the free speech rights of people using the airport terminals for
expressive purposes. Is the entity that adopts airport terminal regulations
different than the one that determines whether chapels should be located in the
terminal or perhaps some airports are more clearly government owned and managed
than others. I’m just curious. If there is no state action here, would it be
constitutional for an airport to have a denominational chapel that conduct
services for only one faith?
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu]On Behalf Of Ed Darrell
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 11:29 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport Again I note,
airport terminals are not buildings that state pays for nor pays to maintain
(though title often falls to a governmental entity if the facility is
abandoned). I just don't think our usual "what can government do" analysis
applies, any more than it would apply to the religious verse citations listed
on the soft-drink cups at In-n-Out Burgers.
Ed Darrell
Dallas
From: Justin Butterfield <jbutterfi...@libertyinstitute.org>
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 12:58 PM
Subject: Re: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport I agree that
there's a possible accommodation approach that would allow the reflection room
as well. Setting aside accommodation, the Sixth Circuit rests pretty
strongly on neutrality as the guiding principle in holding that government
funds may be used to refurbish churches, which seems more like your
hypothetical . Am. Atheists, Inc. v. City of Detroit Downtown Dev. Auth., 567
F.3d 278 (6th Cir. 2009). In that opinion, the Sixth Circuit said,
"SinceTilton, the Court repeatedly has held that the Establishment Clause does
not require the government to exclude religious groups from participating in
open-access programs that make state-owned buildings available to all comers,
even if such groups use the property for 'religious worship and religious
discussion.' Widmar, 454 U.S. At 265, 270–75;see Good News Club, 533 U.S. At
113–14, 119; Lamb's Chapel, 508 U.S. At 394–95;see also Rosenberger, 515 U.S.
at 839–46. What mattered in those cases was not that religious activity took
place in facilities that the State had built and paid to maintain, but that the
government provided access to those facilities on equal terms to all, ensuring
that whatever use the groups made of them could not be chalked up to the
State."Am. Atheists, 567 F.3d at 299. Justin ---
Justin Butterfield
Senior Counsel
Liberty Institute
Tel.: (972) 941-4451
Fax.: (972) 941-4457
jbutterfi...@libertyinstitute.org
www.libertyinstitute.org
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PRODUCT From:Ira Lupu <icl...@law.gwu.edu>
Reply-To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 12:20 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport Is this any
different than creating chapels or worship/reflection spaces on a state
university campus, in a county hospital, or on a military base? What holds
these examples (including the airport) together is the desire to accommodate
the worship needs of patrons/participants who have no ready alternative
available (they are far from home, perhaps trapped physically for a long time,
and perhaps under unusual stress). So government may make these spaces
available, but may not encourage or promote their use. Eugene's airport
example may just reflect the likely "gerrymandering" of traditional chapel
space in the design associated with Christian worship. We would think very
differently about all this if the government set up a program for helping
nonprofits more generally (like schools or social service providers) construct
new space, and permitted the construction of worship spaces within such a
program. That would go to the core of the Establishment Clause prohibition on
government financial support for salary of clergy or the building of churches.
What Nyquist and Tilton said about that seems to me quite good law still, and
it has nothing to do with denominational neutrality. On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at
11:18 AM, Volokh, Eugene <vol...@law.ucla.edu> wrote: A blog
reader asked me about this, and I thought I’d pose the question to the list.
Orlando Airport is apparently spending $250,000 to build a “reflection room”
where Muslim travelers can more conveniently pray, especially given the
expansion of the airline Emirates at the airport.
Seehttp://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-orlando-international-airport-reflection-room-20150808-story.html
. The reflection room is in addition to “the small, nondenominational chapel
tucked away on Airside B, just past the security checkpoint,” where Muslim
travelers sometimes now go (and where there are some prayer rugs available for
them). The reflection room would be open to all religious groups, as I
understand it, but will be primarily designed with Muslim travelers in mind.
Now I don’t think this should be a problematic accommodation, any
more than serving kosher meals (or halal meals) in those government cafeterias
in which there is sufficient demand. But I wonder whether there might
nonetheless be a First Amendment problem under the 1970s cases barring the use
of government funds for physical places where religious services will be held.
(I realize the issue arises as to “reflection rooms” more broadly as well.)
What do people on the list think about it? Thanks, Eugene
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-- Ira C. Lupu
F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus
George Washington University Law School
2000 H St., NW
Washington, DC 20052
(202)994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of "Secular Government,
Religious People" ( Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2014))
My SSRN papers are here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg
_______________________________________________
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