Court Opinion

ID: 9480985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:04:16.298041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:01.676399
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.
“A Touch of Italy” in the Village of Crestwood, Illinois, is a municipal festival in its second year. The Village has sponsored a Polish festival for six years. Sometime during each festival, a mass has been celebrated — in Polish during the Polish festival, in Italian during “A Touch of Italy”. John Doe, a pseudonymous resident of Crestwood offended by the religious observance, filed this suit on Friday, August 10, 1990, the first day of this year’s Italian festival, seeking an injunction against the celebration of the mass, scheduled for 4:00 p.m. the next day. Late Friday afternoon the district judge held a hearing and stated that the mass would be enjoined. A temporary restraining order issued Saturday morning.
Although 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) does not authorize appeals from temporary restraining orders, San Francisco Real Estate Investors v. Real Estate Investment Trust of America, 692 F.2d 814, 816 (1st Cir.1982); Stricklin v. University of Wisconsin, 420 F.2d 1257, 1259 (7th Cir.1970), the order forbidding the observance of mass is not properly characterized as a “temporary” restraint. Drawing a line between appealable preliminary injunctions and non-appealable TROs makes sense when the TRO holds things in stasis to facilitate an orderly decision. Appellate consideration of such an interim step might disrupt the review the order was supposed to permit, and TROs are so short in duration that an appeal commonly could not be completed before their expiration. Better to allow things to proceed in the district court than to fight at length about the brief interlude until a decision may be rendered on the merits. Nomenclature does not determine whether an order is a preliminary injunction, however, Stringfellow v. Concerned Neighbors in Action, 480 U.S. 370, 107 S.Ct. 1177, 94 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987); Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 86-88, 94 S.Ct. 937, 951-52, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974), and the name attached to this order is imprecise. It does not create a little delay pending decision. Rather it forbids the mass, which will not be rescheduled. No further proceedings in the district court concerning this mass are in prospect. All questions concerning the 1990 festival have been wrapped up, leaving only the plaintiff’s request for an injunction against recurrence. This order is an “injunction” within the meaning of § 1292(a)(1), and the notice of appeal therefore invokes our jurisdiction. Belknap v. Leary, 427 F.2d 496, 498 (2d Cir.1970); see also Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller, Edward H. Cooper & Eugene Gressman, 16 Federal Practice and Procedure § 3922 (1977 & 1990 Supp.) (collecting cases).
*1478Caesar Park, a public park in Crestwood, is the home of the Festival. A “Beer Garden tent” in the Park houses several of the Festival’s activities, including concerts each evening from August 10 through 12. Crestwood Women’s Club, which was formed in 1931, holds the license under which the Beer Garden sells its liquor. An employee of the Village who is also a member of the Club invited Father Angelo Biancalana, a Roman Catholic priest, to celebrate mass in the tent on Saturday afternoon. According to the verified complaint this service, which the Village calls an “Italian Mass” because it will be said in Italian, will include the customary prayers and Eucharist of the Roman Catholic church. An altar will be installed in the Beer Garden tent for the occasion; plans call for display of a cross and lighted candles. Plaintiff does not contend, however, that any of the costs of this service will be borne by the Village. Doe represents that he will stay away from the Festival while the mass is underway. But for the mass, the tent would be used as a beer garden between the opening (3:00 p.m. Saturday) and the first concert of the evening, so Doe suffers the same kind of injury as the plaintiff in ACLU v. City of St. Charles, 794 F.2d 265, 267-69 (7th Cir.1986), and has standing.
Crestwood not only owns the Park but also sponsors the Festival. The Park is a public forum. If the Festival, too, is open to private groups that wish to participate, and if the Crestwood Women’s Club (or a church) were the sponsor of the mass, it would be difficult to find an obstacle in the establishment clause of the first amendment. Music acts, cultural exhibits, food booths, bingo, and the like attest the scope of the Festival. A government may not close its public forums to religious practice by private parties. Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S. 67, 73 S.Ct. 526, 97 L.Ed. 828 (1953). Although the holding of a mass in a public park creates a possibility that some members of the public will assume sponsorship (as opposed to acquiescence) by the polity, the government’s obligation not to discriminate against religious speech in circumstances in which secular speech would be allowed prevails. See O’Hair v. Andrus, 613 F.2d 931 (D.C.Cir.1979) (Pope may hold a mass on the Mall, despite the substantial costs of crowd control and cleanup, when the Park Service bears similar costs for secular demonstrations).
Owning a public forum is one thing, sponsoring a mass quite another. A religious service under governmental auspices necessarily conveys the message of approval or endorsement. Prevailing doctrine condemns such endorsement, even when no private party is taxed or coerced in any way. Allegheny County v. ACLU, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 3086, 3100-01, 106 L.Ed.2d 472 (1989); American Jewish Congress v. Chicago, 827 F.2d 120, 128 (7th Cir.1987); City of St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 270-71. See also Gilfillan v. Philadelphia, 637 F.2d 924 (3d Cir.1980) (Pope’s mass in a public park is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion when the city pays for the construction of the altar).
This is so even when the endorsement takes place in company with secular events, such as the foods, crafts, and entertainment offered at the Festival. Both Allegheny County and Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984), hold that government may display a religious symbol (a menorah in Allegheny County, a creche in Lynch) without endorsing religion when the context demonstrates that the government is not taking a stance. Two contexts mattered — first the season, for in each case the government was displaying the symbols appropriate to the time of year; second the immediately surrounding symbols, for in each case the government was displaying an assortment of symbols appropriate to all aspects of the holidays. Christmas and Hanukkah are secular as well as religious holidays; to use symbols appropriate to all aspects of the occasion is not to endorse a particular religion. Mather v. Village of Mundelein, 864 F.2d 1291 (7th Cir.1989). If Christmas may be a secular holiday, the state may recognize whose birthday is being commemorat*1479ed. Under the approach of Allegheny County, Lynch, and Mundelein, even a herd of reindeer and a forest of jumbo candy canes could not neuter a mass — a religious observance that does substantially more than mark the birth of a figure with religious significance. The mass celebrates the life, teachings, death, resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus; it is an occasion for worship, not for putting a holiday in a historical context that happens to be religious. If secular symbols could not remove the implication of endorsement from a mass at Christmas (and we believe they could not), then food, beer, and bingo are insufficient to render a mass “secular”. Although the seat of the Roman Catholic Church is in Rome, Christianity is not distinctively Italian, and homage to Italian culture and food does not imply religious observance. When the Court held that a state legislature may open with prayer, it did so because of the deep roots of the practice, not because prayer in the context of legislation is secular. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983). Celebration of the Eucharist is a significant step beyond a short, non-denominational prayer.
So everything turns on who is putting on this mass. Is it the Village, or is the church or a private club sponsoring a mass in the Village’s public forum? The district court found that the Village is the sponsor, and we do not believe this to be clearly erroneous. Doe’s verified complaint states that the Village is the sponsor. The Village concedes that one of its employees selected and recruited the priest. An article in a newspaper published by the Village bears the headline: “Italian Mass to be celebrated at our Italian Fest”. As the district judge emphasized, “our” implies that the mass and Festival alike are under the Village’s sponsorship. The article does not mention the Crestwood Women’s Club. A display in the same issue touts the Festival; an inset box inveigled the reader to “Join Us for a Traditional Italian Mass Celebration at 4 p.m. — Sat., August 11th. No admittance charge for Mass.” Apparently “us” is the Village, the only identified sponsor. We reprint the display as an appendix to this opinion.
- Perhaps additional materials would show that the Crestwood Women’s Club is the true sponsor of the mass. The Village’s attorney represented to the district judge that it is. But the Village did not produce any publicity materials showing that the Club sponsors the mass and that the Village offers only a public forum — one that would have been equally open to an opera or other secular event. All information in the Village’s paper would lead an objective observer to conclude that the Village itself is the sponsor, or at least a sponsor. So the district judge was entitled to conclude that the Village has endorsed Christianity, if not Roman Catholicism in particular, and under Allegheny County it may not do so.
Doe wants an injunction against religious services at future festivals in Crestwood. We assume that the district judge will take evidence and make more detailed findings concerning the sponsorship of the mass and what, if anything, the Village has done (or could do) to demonstrate that it is providing a public forum but not endorsement. Nothing we say in this opinion prejudges that inquiry. On this slim record, however, the district judge’s conclusions cannot be found clearly erroneous. The injunction against the mass scheduled for 4:00 p.m. on August 11, 1990, is
Affirmed.
*1480APPENDIX
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