1994 ~ New York City Board of Education rejects an application from the Bronx Household of 
Faith church to rent a public school building for Sunday services.
1995 ~ ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence, then an ADF-allied attorney, files a lawsuit on
behalf of the church in federal district court. ADF provides funding for the case.
1996 ~ The church loses in federal district court and appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
1997 ~ The church loses at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Lorence files request for review to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1998 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court denies review, and the case is seemingly over.
June 2001 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of equal access for middle-school Bible clubs in the ADF-packed case Good News Club v. Milford Central Schools. In the majority decision, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas writes that Bronx may have been "wrongly decided."
The church again asks to rent the public school building, and its request is again denied.
September 2001 ~ Lorence files a new lawsuit in federal district court based on the precedent set in Good News Club v. Milford Central Schools.
Summer 2002 ~ The district court judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit who ruled against the church in 1997 now rules in favor of it, granting Bronx Household of Faith a temporary injunction and denying a Board of Education request to keep the church from meeting in the school pending appeal. The Bronx Household of Faith, after seven years, can now hold Sunday worship services in the school building.
October 2002 ~ The U.S. Justice Department files a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of the ADF position and the church's right to meet in the public school.
June 2003 ~ The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rules in favor of the Bronx Household of Faith, upholding the lower court's temporary injunction . The case now goes back to federal district court to make the injunction permanent.
November 2005 ~ The federal disrect court makes the preliminarty injunction permanent. The school district appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
July 2007 ~ Two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rule against the Bronx Household of Faith on a technicality issue. The case is sent back down to federal district court for reconsideration
November 2007 ~ The federal district court once again files a permanent injunction in favor of the church. The school board appealed to the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
June 2011 ~ The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned a lower court ruling that allowed the Bronx Household of Faith to hold services in P.S. 15.
Bronx Household of Faith Versus New York City Board of Education
July, 2011
What does the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit of June 2 and the passage into law, recognizing same-sex marriage by the New York State legislature on June 24 have in common? Plenty! And the long range effects could be quite devastating.
For starters, both decisions refuse to recognize the authority of God, creator and sovereign of the universe, as the authority above the state. This is a problem that is at least old as the Tower of Babel
Second, both are intrusions of the state, inasmuch as they are attempts to regulate and redefine activity that antedates and transcends the state. I am referring to the 2 to 1 decision handed down by the Second Circuit on June 2 that overturned the injunction in place since 2002 enabling us and over 60 other churches to rent an empty school building on Sundays for our meetings. A few weeks later, the legislature of the State of New York, on June 24, established into law the recognition of same-sex marriage.
It is both interesting and sobering that we have to put an adjective in front of the word, marriage. The state of New York has dared to redefine an institution that goes back to the Garden of Eden.
I said that legalizing same-sex marriage has something in common with our 15 year legal battle with the city of New York and the decision of the Second Circuit that, unless it is reversed on appeal, will put us out on the street, literally. It is the intrusion of the state into institutions and activity that transcends culture and antedates the state.
I’ve been reading of late, Eric Metaxes’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In the historical setting in which we find Bonhoeffer, we see blatant interference by the state and its action to control the church in the 1930’s coinciding with the rise of Hitler. But, comes the rejoinder, they did not have the rigorous separation of church and state that we’ve had in this country. True enough, but that “wall of separation” is beginning to crack.
What difference does it make if you’re totally separate from the state and the state manages to marginalize you to the fringes of society or you are a state church and, thereby, totally absorbed into it? In both cases the church is rendered powerless by the state.
In the same-sex legislation it has overturned the trans-cultural, creation ordinance that defines marriage between a man and a woman and it now says it is also between two men or two women. What’s to stop it from defining it further to include, say, polygamy or something worse?
In our court case the state now claims the right to take on the role of a theologian by making a distinction between religious discussion and/or instruction (which is allowed) and religious worship (which is not allowed). Mind, this is under the rubric of separation of church and state. Should the Second Circuit’s decision stand, we will still be able to rent the school for Vacation Bible School but not for religious worship.
Now we are in the position of having to consult the state, which, on its extended use application form, asks us to identify our activities. They want to know if our allowed religious activity has crossed over into the no man’s land of religious worship.
In other words, the things that happened to the church in Germany in the 1930’s could very well happen here. It might move at a slower pace but these things have a way of accelerating and once they are in motion, it seems that the law of gravitas takes over. The anti-christian posturing is becoming increasingly brazen.
We know from Scripture that what God opens no man can shut. If this is a door that God has opened let us pray together that it will not be shut by man! On the other hand if God is shutting this door, we will trust in His all-wise providence because we know that He has something even more wonderful and awesome in mind. His purposes will not be thwarted.
Bob Hall
