Church Seeks Public Lease, Gets a Questionnaire on Doctrine

The Pines Church in Bangor Maine, after noticing that many of its congregants lived in nearby Hermon, decided to make the move to this small town; however, Hermon (population 6,461) has a scarcity of available rental space. After searching around, The Pines Church turned to leasing space from the local high school as an after-hours, weekend option for worship services.
 
This seemed a no-brainer. After all, a number of groups rent space from the local school district, including Black Bears Basketball, Hermon Recreation, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and various baseball clubs. To show support to the community, the church offered to pay $400 above the original price.
 
After filing the request form, the church received a questionnaire from Superintendent Micah Grant, a member of the school board. Grant forwarded questions from a school board member:

• Is the Pines Church receptive of same-sex marriages? Do they consider marriage only to be between 1 man and 1 woman?

• In addition to my question on marriage, I’m also wondering if Matt [co-pastor Matt Gioia] can share more information on where the Pines Church stands on issues such as:
  • Access to safe and affordable abortion
  • Access to gender-affirming medical care
  • Conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ individuals [youth and adults]
  • Inclusive sexual education and access to birth control for youth.

 
After receiving responses it regarded as disappointing, the school board rejected the church’s application for a six-month or a year-long lease. The Pine Church responded by suing to protect its First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, with equitable treatment under the law.
 
“Public institutions that seek to lease their facilities for revenue should not be able to discriminate based on religious or political conviction,” Mariah Gondiero, an attorney for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, said in a statement.
 
This small-town drama is just one manifestation of a controversy playing out across the United States, one in which traditional views on sexuality conflict with public mandates on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This is the core of a legal struggle in California, where a school district is fighting in court to enforce its ban on the Fellowship of Christian Athletes as a recognized student group, all because that organization adheres to traditional beliefs.
 
As a matter of law, traditional religious beliefs are protected under the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment. Given this constitutional basis, Protect The 1st expects the courts to side with The Pine Church. But continuous clashes like this will not be solved by law alone. This is a cultural issue in which a little dialogue might work wonders.
 
Dialogue is needed because it sometimes seems as if many public officials hold a caricature of traditional religions as being just an inch away from hateful groups like the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Whatever one’s beliefs about traditional marriage, it bears noting that it is not just evangelical Christians who hold this belief, but also millions of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims. In our experience, most religious groups are the opposite of hateful, welcoming all comers, charitable, and tolerant in the extreme.
 
Beyond the lawsuits and the constitutional issues at stake, it would behoove those in positions of authority to recognize that one can disagree with traditional beliefs while respecting our fellow Americans’ right to hold them.
 
That is exactly what Congress did when it passed the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Biden in December 2022. 
 
With the vote of every congressional Democrat and many Republicans, that law not only protected same-sex marriage in statute, but also expressly affirmed that those who hold traditional beliefs on that subject should not be treated as bigots. Congress declared:
 
“Diverse beliefs about the role of gender in marriage are held by reasonable and sincere people based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises. Therefore, Congress affirms that such people and their diverse beliefs are due proper respect.”