Court Opinion

ID: 9781791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:32:09.455203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:39.530237
License: Public Domain

JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Circuit
Judge, dissenting:
The Board’s Standard Operating Procedure (“SOP”) § 5.11 withholds otherwise broadly available school-use permits from religious groups seeking to use school facilities during non-school hours “for the purpose of holding religious worship services, or otherwise using a school as a house of worship.” Without addressing the “house of worship” ban, the majority concludes that the ban on “religious worship services” does not offend the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause because *53it is a neutral, content-based restriction that is reasonably implemented to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. I disagree: SOP § 5.11 is impermissible viewpoint discrimination against protected speech and is unsupported by a compelling state interest. In this case, Bronx Household’s worship services fit easily within the purposes of the Board’s broadly available forum and may not be the object of discrimination based upon the religious viewpoint expressed by the services’ participants. The Board’s purported Establishment Clause concerns are insubstantial: they are not reasonable, much less a compelling reason for the Board to shut the door on Bronx Household’s protected speech.
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When this panel split in 2007, Judge Calabresi indicated that he would uphold SOP § 5.11 as a reasonable content-based restriction on the unique subject of “worship,” Judge Leval expressed no opinion on the merits of the case due to ripeness concerns, and I indicated that I would strike down the application of SOP § 5.11 as unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. See generally Bronx Household of Faith v. Bd. ofEduc., 492 F.3d 89, 100-106 (Calabresi, J.), 110-123 (Leval, J.), and 123-32 (Walker, J.) (2d Cir.2007). At that time, I compared the purpose of Bronx Household’s proposed use of school property with the purposes for which the Board opened its limited forum to the public under SOP § 5.6.2, and, after inquiring searchingly of the government’s motives, concluded that the Board had engaged in impermissible viewpoint discrimination by rejecting permit applicants under SOP § 5.11. Id. at 123-25. In response to Judge Calabresi’s willingness to uphold the Board’s prohibition on religious worship, I countered that Judge Calabresi had not engaged in any real analysis of the purpose of Bronx Household’s proposed expressive activity in light of the purposes of the forum and in comparison to the purposes of the activities the Board had allowed, pointing out that he had erred by simply comparing the speech already permitted on school premises with “worship,” which he declared to be sui generis and thus readily excludable from the forum. See id. at 127-130; cf Op. of J. Calabresi at 51.
Now, in this latest iteration of what is effectively the same facial challenge to the Board’s exclusions under SOP § 5.11, the majority opinion breaks with Judge Calabresi’s earlier analysis that “worship” is a separate category of speech that is readily excludable from the Board’s expansive community use policy, declining even to consider either the second part of SOP § 5.11 (which prohibits “using a school as a house of worship”) or whether “worship” may be lawfully excluded from the forum. Compare Maj. Op. at 36 & 36 n. 6 (expressly avoiding a decision on “worship”), with Op. of J. Calabresi at 37 (readily excluding “worship”).1 Rather, the majority adopts a position not argued below or advanced by the Board by focusing solely on the Board’s restriction against “religious worship services,” characterizing SOP § 5.11 as merely the exclusion of “the conduct of an event or activity that includes expression of a point of view,” Maj. Op. at 37. The majority does not disagree that Bronx Household’s services fall squarely within the purposes of the limited public forum; it holds, however, that SOP § 5.11’s exclusion of services is both viewpoint-neutral and justified by Establish*54ment Clause concerns. Because I believe that neither conclusion is correct, I would affirm the district court’s injunction.
I. SOP § 5.11’s Ban on Religious Worship Services Constitutes Viewpoint Discrimination
As the majority recognizes, the Board has created a limited public forum by opening its schools for “uses pertaining to the welfare of the community.” SOP § 5.6.2. When the state creates such a forum, it “is not required to and does not allow persons to engage in every type of speech.” Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch., 533 U.S. 98, 106,121 S.Ct. 2093, 150 L.Ed.2d 151 (2001). The government may, for example, reserve the limited public forum “for the discussion of certain topics.” Id. (quoting Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. ofVa., 515 U.S. 819, 829, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995)). Any restrictions on speech in a limited public forum must, however, be both viewpoint neutral and “reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 806, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985). SOP § 5.11 is neither.
Here, the Board opened its schools to the public for purposes of “maximiz[ing] educational, cultural, artistic and recreational opportunities for children and parents,” Cahill. Decl. ¶ 13, “assisting] in ... development generally,” id., “expanding] enrichment opportunities for children,” Farina Decl. ¶ 9, and “enhancing] community support for the schools,” id. The parties agree, and the majority does not contest, that Bronx Household’s intended use of P.S. 15 for “Christian worship services” — which include prayer, the reading and singing of psalms, Bible lessons, personal testimony, communion, preaching, fellowship, and conversation — falls within the purposes of the forum. See, e.g., Transcript of Oral Argument, 10/6/2009 (“Tr.”), at 10:7-8, 21:20-21, & 22:20-22 (each statement conceding that Bronx Household’s intended use advances the forum’s purposes). The majority nevertheless finds that the restriction on religious services is content discrimination that is reasonable in light of the purposes of the limited public forum. I disagree and conclude that the Board’s discrimination against Bronx Household is based on its religious viewpoint.
The Supreme Court has consistently held that the exclusion of private speakers from open fora or limited public fora on the basis of their religious message constitutes viewpoint discrimination. In Widmar v. Vincent, for example, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that “religious worship and discussion” are “forms of speech and association protected by the First Amendment.” 454 U.S. 263, 269, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981). On this basis, the Court rejected a university’s attempt to prevent a student organization from using an open forum to hold meetings, similar to those at issue here, that included “prayer, hymns, Bible commentary, and discussion of religious views and experiences.” Id. at 265 n. 2, 102 S.Ct. 269. Significantly, the Court rejected a distinction between protected religious speech and “a new class of religious speech act[s] constituting worship.” Id. at 269 n. 6, 102 S.Ct. 269 (alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The Court explained that this proposed distinction lacked “intelligible content” and would not “lie within the judicial competence to administer.” Id.
The Supreme Court first addressed private religious speech in a limited public forum in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. *55384, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993). There, a church sought to use a school’s limited public forum, after hours, to show a six-part film series that dealt with “family and child-rearing issues” from a Christian perspective. Id. at 387-89,113 S.Ct. 2141. The Court found that the school district had engaged in viewpoint discrimination by “permitting] school property to be used for the presentation of all views about family issues and child rearing except those dealing with the subject matter from a religious standpoint.” Id. at 393, 113 S.Ct. 2141. Similarly, in Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia, the Court rejected the University of Virginia’s refusal to fund a student newspaper on the basis that the newspaper “primarily promote® or manifest[ed] a particular belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.” 515 U.S. 819, 823, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995). The Court explained that viewpoint discrimination is a subset of content discrimination and that while it is “something of an understatement to speak of religious thought and discussion as just a viewpoint, as distinct from a comprehensive body of thought,” religion nevertheless “provides ... a specific premise, a perspective, a standpoint from which a variety of subjects may be discussed and considered.” Id. at 830-31, 115 S.Ct. 2510. For that reason, the University’s refusal to fund a student publication because of its Christian perspective, while continuing to fund publications with other (secular) perspectives, was impermissible viewpoint discrimination. Id. at 831-32, 115 S.Ct. 2510.
More recently, in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98, 121 S.Ct. 2093, 150 L.Ed.2d 151 (2001), the Supreme Court applied its holdings in Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger to activities that could be labeled “worship.” Milford had created a limited public forum that, like SOP § 5.6.2 here, opened its school for purposes “pertaining to the welfare of the community.” Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 102, 121 S.Ct. 2093. The Good News Club, a private Christian organization, sought to use this forum for weekly meetings, at which participants would “sing[] songs, hear[] a Bible lesson and memoriz[e] scripture.” 533 U.S. at 103, 121 S.Ct. 2093. In finding Milford’s exclusion of these meetings unconstitutional, the Court explained that “something that is ‘quintessentially religious’ or ‘decidedly religious in nature’ can[ ] also be characterized properly as the teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint.” Id. at 111, 121 S.Ct. 2093. While declining to challenge Justice Souter’s characterization of the Club’s activities as “an evangelical service of worship,” the Court wrote that “what matters is the substance of the Club’s activities,” which the Court found to be “materially indistinguishable from the activities in Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger.” Id. at 112 n. 4, 121 S.Ct. 2093. Because non-religious groups were permitted to teach morals and character development from a secular viewpoint, excluding the Good News Club’s efforts to do the same from a religion viewpoint was impermissible.
The majority argues in this case that the Board has not discriminated on the basis of viewpoint and tries to distinguish these prior Supreme Court decisions by focusing narrowly on the Board’s exclusion of “religious worship services.” The Board, however, has not differentiated these services from religious worship or the practice of religion. Indeed, how could it do so? Nor has the Board offered a definition of religious worship services. Rather, the majority offers its own self-styled definition of “religious worship services,” without reference to the record or briefs, as “the conduct of a particular type of event: a collective activity characteristi*56cally done according to an order prescribed by and under the auspices of an organized religion, typically but not necessarily conducted by an ordained official of the religion,” the conduct of which “has the effect of placing centrally, and perhaps even of establishing, the religion in the school.” Maj. Op. at 37. The majority’s formulation of “religious worship services,” including its shoe-horning of a supposed Establishment Clause problem, is conveniently tailored to support its arguments, but leaves no doubt that it is “religious services” and “worship” that the Board is targeting for exclusion. The Board is otherwise unconcerned with comparable ceremonial speech occurring on school premises.2 The majority’s definition, it bears noting, leads to anomalous results: while a Catholic or Episcopal service would be shut out of the forum, a Quaker meeting service, Buddhist meditation service, or other religions worship convocation could be allowed because it would not follow a “prescribed order” or because the leader is not “ordained.” Ultimately, the majority’s definition also obscures the central issue, barely discussed in the majority opinion, of whether Bronx Household is engaging in speech that fulfills the purposes of the forum and is consistent with non-religious speech occurring on school premises.
The core of the majority’s argument is that by prohibiting “religious worship services,” the Board has only prohibited “the conduct of an event or activity that includes expression of a point of view,” rather than “excluding the expression of that point of view.” Maj. Op. at 37. The majority’s attempt to differentiate between the conduct of an event, here labeled “services,” and the protected viewpoints expressed during the event is futile because the conduct of “services” is the protected expressive activity of the sort recognized in Good News Club and, earlier, in Widmar. The majority turns its back on the Supreme Court’s holding in Good News Club that it is viewpoint discrimination for a school to exclude what is effectively “an evangelical service of worship” from a limited public forum that in every material respect is identical to the forum that the Board established in this case. Compare Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 112 n. 4, 121 S.Ct. 2093, with id. at 137-38, 121 S.Ct. 2093 (Souter, dissenting). The Board cannot lawfully exclude the conduct of an event based solely on the religious viewpoints expressed during the event.
Indeed, in rejecting the claim that religious worship is not protected speech in Widmar, Justice Powell explained that a carve-out of worship from protected religious speech does not have intelligible content and likely would not “lie within the judicial competence to administer.” 454 U.S. at 269 n. 6, 102 S.Ct. 269. The carve-out, Justice Powell wrote, also lacks “relevance” because there is “no reason why the Establishment Clause, or any other provision of the Constitution, would require different treatment for religious *57speech designed to win religious converts than for religious worship by persons already converted.” Id. (citation omitted).
Fixing upon the label “services” for the program of worship at issue here as a carve-out from protected speech — as opposed to other characterizations such as “meeting,” “gathering,” “prayer group,” or “time of worship” — does nothing to resolve the underlying carve-out problems identified by Justice Powell in Widmar. The same concerns — lack of intelligible content, judicial manageability, and relevance — persist. While the majority tries to address these concerns through its own definition of services, the concerns raised in Widmar adhere in the application of the majority’s definition. It is as difficult for a court to ascertain when it is dealing with “services” as with “worship” generally and to manage any such distinction. And ultimately, any distinction between “services” and protected religious speech is irrelevant because, regardless of labels, “what matters is the substance of the [group’s] activities.” Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 112 n. 4, 121 S.Ct. 2093.
Moreover, that SOP § 5.11 exclusively targets religious viewpoints is evident from the fact that, as in Good News Club, only “religious” services are shut out of the forum. No similar restriction is placed on secular gatherings that are materially indistinguishable from Bronx Household’s use of P.S. 15. While the Board denies Bronx Household a space to celebrate its ideals, it permits other outside organizations, such as the Legionnaire Greys Program and the Boy Scouts, to meet on school premises to further their secular ideals of “military leadership,” or “character building, citizenship, and personal and physical fitness.” The Board permits these secular uses despite the fact that these groups also meet according to a prescribed order of conduct that they consider integral to the accomplishment of their goals. See, e.g., 1st Aff. of David Laguer, at ¶¶ 3, 4, & 6 (describing Legionnaire Greys Program meetings as “structured and ordered,” each consisting of, inter alia, a ceremonial flag presentation, trumpets playing the national anthem, flag salutes, unit lessons, leadership training, and character building); Aff. of Jeffrey G. Fanara, at ¶¶ 5, 6, & 8 (describing Boy Scout troop meetings as consisting of a “preopening, a half-hour gathering period, ... a formal opening ceremony ... with a flag ceremony and [ ] a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the Scout Oath or Law,” and a “closing ceremony” that “includes a motivational message ... based on Scouting’s values”). There can be little doubt that the Board would similarly allow the use of its facilities by fraternal organizations, such as the Elks or the Freemasons, "with comparable missions and ceremonies.
Just as each of these groups meets to address and discuss universal concerns while advancing its organizational mission, so too does Bronx Household’s “Sunday morning meeting [act as] the indispensable integration point for [the group]. It provides the theological framework to engage in activities that benefit the welfare of the community.” First Aff. of Robert Hall (“1st Hall Aff.”), at ¶ 7. Further, it is during Bronx Household’s gatherings that participants are taught “to love their neighbors as themselves, to defend the weak and disenfranchised, and to help the poor regardless of their particular beliefs. It is a venue where people ... come to talk about their particular problems and needs.”3 Id. Plainly, there can be no *58claim that Bi'onx Household’s gatherings fail to address subjects that are otherwise permitted in the forum or that they differ from secular groups’ meetings in any way other than their invocation of religious doctrine.4
The majority also relies on a number of hypothetical activities to argue that the Board could deny a permit application in order to avoid “either harm to persons or property, or liability, or a mess, which those activities may produce.” Maj. Op. at 37. Irrespective of the Board’s power to deny permits for such hypothetical uses out of a concern for safety, sanitation, and non-interference with other uses of the schools, see Capitol Square Review & Adv. Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753, 758, 115 S.Ct. 2440,132 L.Ed.2d 650 (1995), none of these concerns has ever been present in this case. Strikingly, while quick to proffer these hypothetical uses, the majority never comes to grips with the significant fact that the Board allows most outside organizations to access its facilities for uses that “pertain[ ] to the welfare of the community” and “promotfe] [children’s] development generally,” so long, of course, as those organizations’ activities do not amount to religious worship services or transform the school into a “house of worship.” Despite the majority’s arguments to the contrary, it is readily apparent that the Board singles out religious worship for disfavored treatment. The majority’s argument that SOP § 5.11 is nothing more than a content-based restriction on a specific type of activity, albeit a religious one, plainly fails.5
*59Finally, the majority argues that my finding of viewpoint discrimination overlooks the Board’s Establishment Clause rationale. Maj. Op. at 48-50. As an initial matter, I disagree that the Board’s Establishment Clause concerns are reasonable, for the reasons discussed in Part II. Nevertheless, even if the Board were to have legitimate Establishment Clause concerns, those concerns could do nothing to undermine my conclusion that the Board engaged in viewpoint discrimination; at most, they could only serve as a potential justification for such discrimination.
Thus, whether the Board’s actions under SOP § 5.11 are properly characterized as the exclusion of worship, the exclusion of “religious worship services,” or the exclusion of “the conduct of an event or activity that includes expression of a [religious] point of view,” Maj. Op. at 37, the Board has discriminated against Bronx Household on the basis of religious viewpoint. The group’s proposed use of P.S. 15 fits plainly within the purpose of the limited public forum created under SOP § 5.6.2; is not incompatible with any time, place, and manner restrictions imposed by the Board; and has been denied solely because Bronx Household wishes to address otherwise permissible subjects from a religious viewpoint through its conduct of religious “worship services.”
II. Bronx Household’s Intended Use of P.S. 15 Raises No Legitimate Establishment Clause Concerns
After concluding that SOP § 5.11 is content discrimination, the majority next considers the reasonableness of SOP § 5.11. However, it does so not in light of the forum’s stated purposes, but rather in light of the Board’s stated concern that allowing the conduct of “religious worship services” in schools would give rise to a sufficient appearance of endorsement to constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause. See Maj. Op. at 39-40. Unlike my colleagues in the majority and the Board, I am not prepared to shut out constitutionally-protected speech from a neutral forum on the sole basis that it is “quintessentially religious.” Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 111, 121 S.Ct. 2093. I would hold that the actions of Bronx Household, a private party, cannot transform the government’s neutral action into an Establishment Clause violation. The Board’s fear of being perceived as establishing a religion is therefore not reasonable, if the exclusion is viewed (erroneously) as content discrimination, much less sufficiently compelling to justify the viewpoint discrimination that I believe is occurring.
Just like the defendants in Widmar, the Board and the majority “miseonceive[ ] the nature of the case.” 454 U.S. at 273, 102 S.Ct. 269. The Board has not created a forum open only to religious speech. Rather, “it has opened its facilities for use by [the community], and the question is whether it can now exclude groups because of the content of their speech.” Id. In fact, the Supreme Court has “[m]ore than once ... rejected the position that the Establishment Clause even justifies, much less requires, a refusal to extend free speech rights to religious speakers who participate in broad-reaching government programs neutral in design.” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 839, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (citing Lamb’s Chapel, 508 U.S. at 393-94, 113 S.Ct. 2141; Bd. ofEduc. ofWestside Cmty. Sch. (Dist.66) v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 248, 252, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 *60(1990)). Because the Establishment Clause looks only to the government’s role, if any, in establishing religion and not the private speaker’s choice in exercising his free speech rights, I reach the opposite conclusion from the majority as to whether a reasonable person would perceive the Board’s grant of the neutral-forum permit sought here to be an endorsement of religion.
The Board and the majority invoke Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 5.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971), to demonstrate that SOP § 5.11 is reasonable, but they misapply the Lemon test, thereby reaching several conclusions that directly contradict controlling Supreme Court precedent. In particular, the majority offers five bases for concluding that SOP § 5.11 is reasonably based on the Board’s supposed concern that granting Bronx Household a permit for “Christian worship services” might have the “principal or primary effect” of endorsing religion, see id. at 612, 91 S.Ct. 2105, thereby violating the Establishment Clause.6 The battle that the majority and the Board wish to fight, however, has already been lost. The Supreme Court has rejected Establishment Clause concerns, including those raised by the majority, in this context because they are premised on the mistaken belief that permitting religious groups to use school facilities for religious purposes on a non-school day in a neutral forum creates a realistic danger that the public will perceive the Board as endorsing religion.
The relevant question to be asked is not whether any person might mistakenly perceive the Board as conveying a message of endorsement or disapproval; rather, the endorsement test asks whether “an objective observer, acquainted with the text, legislative history, and implementation of the [challenged law or policy], would perceive it as a state endorsement of [organized religion] in public schools.” Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 308, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000) (emphasis added) (quoting Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 73, 76, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985) (O’Connor, J., concurring)). Thus, the majority confuses its analysis when it emphasizes the private speaker’s conduct, rather than the government’s role, in establishing religion. The fact that a community member might witness an outside organization using a school during non-school hours to further its religious cause does not in itself raise a legitimate concern that the government has acted in contravention of the Establishment Clause. See Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 767, 115 S.Ct. 2440 (Scalia, /., for the plurality) (“By its terms th[e] [Establishment] Clause applies only to the words and acts of government. It was never meant, and has never been read by this Court, to *61serve as an impediment to purely private religious speech connected to the State only through its occurrence in a public forum.” (emphasis in original)).
For these reasons, the majority’s focus on the “religious nature” of the speech, without regard to the nature of the speaker, is misplaced. The majority cites McCreary County v. ACLU, 545 U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 162 L.Ed.2d 729 (2005); County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S.Ct. 3086, 106 L.Ed.2d 472 (1989); and Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992), as foundational to its Establishment Clause analysis, and of course they would be highly relevant to this case were we dealing with religious speech by the government. In McCreary and County of Allegheny, the government’s placement of the Ten Commandments and a nativity creche, respectively, in county courthouses violated the Establishment Clause, as did the government in Lee v. Weisman when a school official invited a rabbi to give an invocation and benediction at a middle-school commencement exercise. In the case before us, however, the most the government has done is to open up a neutral public forum limited by its laudable educational and community-building purposes. Unlike in these three cited cases, it has neither promoted nor endorsed a religious message.
Also, “a significant factor in upholding government programs in the face of Establishment Clause attack is their neutrality towards religion.” Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 114,121 S.Ct. 2093 (quoting Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 839, 115 S.Ct. 2510). Indeed, the Free Speech Clause’s requirement of viewpoint neutrality by the government in opening a forum tends to undermine, if not preclude, a finding of school sponsorship in the Establishment Clause context. See Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 114, 121 S.Ct. 2093 (“Because allowing the Club to speak on school grounds would ensure neutrality, not threaten it, [the school district] faces an uphill battle in arguing that the Establishment Clause compels it to exclude the Good News Club.”).7 To an objective, fully informed observer, the fact that the forum is open to a wide spectrum of participants bespeaks the state’s neutrality, not its favoring of religion or any other group.
In any event, even if a private actor’s conduct could somehow transform a neutral forum into a state endorsement of religion, Bronx Household’s services would not do so here. Just as in Lamb’s Chapel and Good News Club, Bronx Household’s use of P.S. 15 takes place during non-school hours (actually on a day when there is no school), lacks school sponsorship, occurs in a forum otherwise available for a wide variety of uses, and is open to the public. See 1st Hall Dep. at 30 (“Worship services are always open to the public.”); 1st Hall Aff., ¶ 5 (“Our Sunday morning meetings are open to all members of the public. The meetings are not closed to a *62limited group of people, such as church members and their guests.”).8 And while the majority in this ease cites the “particularly acute” danger that young and impressionable students will perceive the weekend use of their schools by religious groups as the Board’s endorsement of religion or certain religious denominations, see Maj. Op. at [42^13], the Supreme Court rejected this same argument in Good News Club, where it was presented with facts less favorable to Good News Club than those the majority cites to here. See, e.g., Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 117-18, 121 S.Ct. 2093. Specifically, the Good News Club’s activities took place directly after school and catered to children ages 6-12, id.; here, by contrast, Bronx Household’s services occur on Sundays, when the only children present at the school are those attending the services, presumably with their parents.
The majority argues at some length that permitting weekly worship services at P.S. 15 transforms the school into a church. See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 41 (“When worship services are performed in a place, ... [t]he place has, at least for a time, become the church.”). The majority then equates permitting worship services to “subsidizing churches” and “allowing schools to be converted into churches.” Maj. Op. at 41. The “church” reference appears no less than twelve times in the majority opinion. Such an argument — that somehow a neutral forum is physically (or perhaps metaphysically) transformed into a non-neutral forum by the private activity undertaken there — has the feel of rhetoric. The same claim could have been made in Widmar and Good News Club, in which decidedly church-related activities were permitted to occur on a regular basis. Bronx Household’s services do not convert P.S. 15 into a church any more than the Boy Scout meetings convert it into a Boy Scout lodge.
The majority also errs in relying on the fact that some outside religious organizations may more easily obtain school-use permits because they worship on Sundays, not Fridays and Saturdays. See Maj. Op. at 42-43. An Establishment Clause violation does not result from either private choice or happenstance. See Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639, 652, 122 S.Ct. 2460, 153 L.Ed.2d 604 (2002); Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 119 n. 9, 121 S.Ct. 2093; Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 319, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980) (“[I]t does not follow that a statute violates the Establishment Clause because it happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Moreover, that an increasing number of Christian groups have sought Sunday-use permits under SOP § 5.6.2 does not equate to permit unavailability for other religious groups. Indeed, while the majority states that “Jews and Muslims generally cannot use school facilities for their services because the facilities are often unavailable on the days that their religions principally prescribe for services,” Maj. Op. at 43, the record is clear *63that Jewish and Muslim groups have been granted weekend access to school premises across the city under the community use policy. See, e.g., J.A. at 88 (Friday permit for Downtown Synagogue’s “religious services”); id. at 185 (Saturday permit for Downtown Synagogue’s “religious services”); id. at 179 (Saturday permit for Hope of Israel’s “fellowship meetings”); id. at 183 (Saturday permit for Khal Bais Yitzchok’s “religious fellowship meetings”); id. at 229 (Saturday permit for Muslimmah of NA’s “religious services”).9 Finally, the majority’s reliance on County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S.Ct. 3086,106 L.Ed.2d 472 (1989), and Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984), is misplaced because those cases “neither hold[] nor even remotely assume[] that the government’s neutral treatment of private religious expression can be unconstitutional.” Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 765, 115 S.Ct. 2440 (Scalia, /., for the plurality).
Supreme Court caselaw also refutes the Board’s argument that granting Bronx Household Sunday access to P.S. 15 constitutes direct aid to religion because it allows Bronx Household to bypass the expensive New York City real estate market that might otherwise preclude it from establishing a congregation. Cf. Maj. Op. at 41. The Board’s argument runs afoul of Rosenberger:
It does not violate the Establishment Clause for a [school] to grant access to its facilities on a religion-neutral basis to a wide spectrum of student groups, including groups that use meeting rooms for sectarian activities, accompanied by some devotional exercises.... The government usually acts by spending money. Even the provision of a meeting room, as in Mergens and Widmar, involved governmental expenditure, if only in the form of electricity and heating or cooling costs. The [analytical] error ... lies in focusing on the money that is undoubtedly expended by the government, rather than on the nature of the benefit received by the recipient. If the expenditure of governmental funds is prohibited whenever those funds pay for a service that is, pursuant to a religion-neutral program, used by a group for sectarian purposes, then Widmar, Mergens, and Lamb’s Chapel would have to be overruled.
515 U.S. at 842-43, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (emphasis added). Even Justice Souter, who dissented in Rosenberger, agreed that the government does not provide impermissible direct aid to religion each time a non-government speaker utilizes a limited public forum for private religious speech. See id. at 888, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (Souter, /., dissenting). Thus, established Supreme Court precedent effectively forecloses the argument that permitting Bronx House*64hold access to P.S. 15 for the purpose of engaging in private religious speech results in the Board’s unlawful provision of direct aid to a religious group.
In sum, while the majority argues that allowing Bronx Household weekly use of P.S. 15 for “religious worship services” would force the Board to render direct aid to religion, convey a message that the Board endorses religion over non-religion, and exhibit a preference for certain religious denominations over others, these arguments are without merit. Rather, the neutrality of the forum is preserved when religious speech, like non-religious speech, is allowed. Accordingly, if Lemon v. Kurtzman is to apply,10 I would hold that the Board has failed to demonstrate that granting Bronx Household Sunday access to P.S. 15 for worship services would have the principal or primary effect of advancing religion or otherwise conveying a message of endorsement.11 While I would require the Board to demonstrate some sort of government endorsement (an uphill task, to say the least, given the Free Speech Clause’s requirement of forum neutrality) before allowing it to restrict the viewpoint advanced by private religious speech that otherwise falls within the purposes of the forum, the lack of a basis in law for the Board’s establishment concerns undermines any holding that SOP § 5.11 is reasonable, even under the majority’s flawed analysis that SOP § 5.11 is mere content discrimination, much less a compelling justification for the Board’s viewpoint discrimination.
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I have no doubt that this case stirs deep feelings and carries implications far broader than the Board’s exclusion of Bronx Household’s “Christian worship services” under SOP § 5.11. This case also presents important doctrinal considerations worthy of the Supreme Court’s attention. In the meantime, however, as a result of the majority’s decision that “religious worship services” can be barred from the neutral limited public forum the Board created under SOP § 5.6.2, numerous religious groups that provide recognized benefits to the people and their communities, consistent with the forum’s purposes, will be denied access to otherwise available school space simply because their private speech is intertwined with their standard devotional practices and deeply-held religious beliefs. Others will be chilled. Because SOP § 5.11’s ban on religious worship ser*65vices violates the Free Speech Clause, I respectfully dissent.

. While I disagree with Judge Calabresi’s analysis and conclusions, he at least recognizes that the two parts of SOP § 5.11 operate in tandem to effectively preclude worship and the practice of religion from school premises during non-school hours.

. Indeed, the majority's attempt to differentiate between the “conduct of services,” which it defines as “the performance of an event or activity,” Maj. Op. at 36, and the conduct of “religious worship services” as two distinct categories of activity relies explicitly on the religious nature of the latter activity. Whereas a Boy Scouts merit badge service constitutes "a collective activity characteristically done according to an order prescribed by and under the auspices of an organized [civic group]” and is "typically ... conducted by an ... official of the [group],” Maj. Op. at 37, Bronx Household's weekly "event or activity” is barred solely because it is performed under the auspices of an organized religion and conducted by an ordained official of the religion. Thus, these purportedly distinguishing criteria squarely depend on the fact that religion is the underlying motivation for the expressive activity.

. For this reason, the majority errs by distinguishing Good News Club on the basis of the Supreme Court’s statement that the Club meetings in that case did not involve "mere religious worship.” 533 U.S. at 112 n. 4, 121 S.Ct. 2093; see Maj. Op. at 43, 50. The *58majority omits a critical modifier: the Court made clear that it did not consider the Club's activities to be "mere religious worship, divorced. from any teaching of moral values.” Id. (emphasis added). The same is true here: Bronx Household's worship services cannot be divorced from the teaching of moral values that are part and parcel of those services, which include Bible lessons and instruction. Indeed, how can the majority's conception of religious worship services ever be divorced from promoting moral values?

. While this case was argued under the First Amendment’s Free Speech and Establishment Clauses, the Board's action also raises Free Exercise Clause concerns. "At a minimum, the protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for religious reasons.” Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 532, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993); see also Employment Div., Dep’t of Human Res. of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 877, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990). Thus, "if the object of a law is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation, the law is not neutral; and it is invalid unless it is justified by a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to advance that interest.” Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, 508 U.S. at 533, 113 S.Ct. 2217 (internal citation omitted). Given the plain language of SOP § 5.11, the Board’s persistent exclusion of outside organizations seeking to use school facilities for religious purposes, and the Board's repeated statements that SOP § 5.11 is aimed at the practice of religion, it is undisputable that SOP § 5.11 is not neutral. See Smith, 494 U.S. at 877-78, 110 S.Ct. 1595. Because SOP § 5.11 specifically burdens religious practices, it must advance a compelling government interest to pass constitutional muster. See id. at 894-95, 110 S.Ct. 1595 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Such a compelling interest is absent in this case for the reasons stated in Part II.

. The Board’s separate reliance on Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover, 480 F.3d 891 (9th Cir.2007), to argue that SOP § 5.11 is content, not viewpoint, discrimination is misplaced. In Faith Center, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Contra Costa County’s exclusion of a religious congregation from its library meeting space was content, not viewpoint, discrimination because the congregation’s intended use of the space during normal operating hours for "Praise and Worship” services was incompatible with (a) the purpose for which the meeting room forum had been created, and (b) the "library's *59primary function as a sanctuary for reading, writing, and quiet contemplation ... available to the whole community.” Id. at 902, 909-11. No such incompatibility in either purpose or facility is present here.

. The five bases the majority cites are as follows: (1) after-hours use of school premises for "religious worship services" transforms the school into a church because "[t]he church has made the school the place for the performance of its rites,” Maj. Op. at 41; (2) the Board might reasonably fear that allowing access for "religious worship services” results in the Board's substantial subsidization of religion, Maj. Op. at 41; (3) granting access for “religious worship services” might permanently convert a school on Sundays into a state-subsidized church "by reason of public perception of endorsement” that "is made particularly acute by the fact that P.S. 15 and other schools used by churches are attended by young and impressionable students,” Maj. Op. at 42; (4) increased availability of Sunday permits would favor Christian groups over other denominations, see Maj. Op. at 42-43; and (5) deliberate exclusion of certain members of the general public, such as persons excommunicated from the church who advocate the Islamic religion, by a religious organization aggravates existing Establishment Clause concerns, see Maj. Op. at 43.

. Indeed, it bears noting that it was, at least in part, the Second Circuit’s previous approval of the Board’s rejection of Bronx Household’s permit application pursuant'to an earlier formulation of the religious-use prohibition ("No outside organization or group may be allowed to conduct religious services or religious instruction on school premises after school.”) that prompted the Court to grant certiorari in Good News Club. See 533 U.S. at 105-106, 121 S.Ct. 2093 (citing Bronx Household I as one of a number of circuit court cases contributing to a circuit conflict "on the question whether speech can be excluded from a limited public forum on the basis of the religious nature of the speech"). It would not have been unreasonable for the Court to have expected that its Good News Club decision would end this case as well.

. While Bronx Household, in accordance with its religious tenets, limits communion to church members who have been baptized, all members of the public are free, to attend its Sunday worship services and there is no evidence that Bronx Household has ever refused admission to anyone. The majority's statement that Bronx Household "excludes ... persons who have been excommunicated or who advocate the Islamic religion from full participation in its services,” Maj. Op. at 43, rests on Pastor Robert Hall's answers to hypothetical questions posed to him by the Board during his deposition that specifically addressed church membership, not public attendance at Sunday worship services. See 2nd Hall Dep. at 35-42.

. The majority relies on the Board’s denial of one group’s request to hold Jewish services on Saturdays in a school generally used for Christian services on Sundays in support of its argument that permits are unavailable to Jewish and Muslim groups. See Maj. Op. at 43. While the Board implies that there is a lack of availability of Friday and Saturday permits for use of its 1,197 buildings, its own evidence demonstrates that approximately 750 buildings are available for after-school use on Fridays, that 400 buildings are available for Saturday use, and that 900 buildings are available for Sunday use. See Appellant's Br. at 13-14. Thus, that some religious denominations use school premises more often than others may simply indicate their lack of other adequate meeting space in the community and not any increased ability on their part to secure a permit. See 2nd Hall Dep. at 105-06. That some religious groups utilize the extended use policy more than others simply does not give rise to a legitimate perception that the Board grants permits to particular denominations to the exclusion of others.

. The Supreme Court recently noted that many of its Establishment Clause cases "have not applied the Lemon test,” while others “have applied it only after concluding that the challenged practice was invalid under a different Establishment Clause test.” Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 686, 125 S.Ct. 2854, 162 L.Ed.2d 607 (2005).

. The majority cites Capitol Square for the proposition that a private religious group may so dominate a forum so as to convey a message of governmental approval. See Maj. Op. at 42. While Bronx Household’s four-hour use of P.S. 15 on Sundays hardly dominates the limited public forum the Board has created under SOP § 5.6.2, any concern over a given group’s prolonged or dominant use of the forum can be addressed through reasonable time, place, and maimer restrictions. For example, in order to ensure greater weekend availability of a particular school's facilities to more outside organizations, the Board could limit the number of times per year that any one outside organization may use school facilities. Likewise, the Board may revoke any organization’s permit if it fails to adhere to neutral rules imposed by the Board, i.e., by failing to include the Board’s sponsorship disclaimer in written materials or by actively creating an impression of school sponsorship. The majority’s reliance on Pleasant Grove City, see Maj. Op. at 42, is similarly misplaced.