A Federal 9th Circuit case was recently brought to my attention. It is in the matter of Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Contra Costa County. The 9th Circuit held it permissible for a library to disallow religious groups to hold services in library conference rooms. The problem is that this holding is in direct contradiction to the holding of the 2001 Supreme Court case of Good News Club v. Milford Central School. By the Good News holding, there is no way a library can discriminate based on religion or religiosity of an activity.

I predict that this case will be appealed to the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit will be reversed. I think it is time for us, as pagans, to test the waters. By the Good News Club holding, Pagan groups cannot be discriminated against if they want to hold rituals or workshops in libraries. I think it is time we took our fight to these public meeting spaces at schools and libraries. If your local library has meeting rooms available for use by public groups, start organizing pagan group meetings to hold in them.

I think however these library meetings play out, it will be good for us. On the one hand, we can use the rooms just like everyone else, cutting our dependence on entities such as the UU church and the private property of individuals for our large-scale activities. We can hold activities even in smaller communities and places without such pagan patronage.

On the other hand, if our meetings fail, there will be grounds to bring to light the inequity through the court system. Either way, our public exposure will be increased and the public will have to learn how to deal with us.

Some pointers for those who would hold these library meetings:

  1. Meticulously follow every rule and rules of common curtesy.
  2. Remain quiet and unobtrusive.
  3. No candles, incense, or other fire.
  4. No loud noise.
  5. No response to any kind of protest there might be accept to ask that the rules of the library be followed.
  6. Nothing anti-Christian or anti-anything on the agenda. Keep a positive focus.
  7. Make sure there is some kind of discernible community benefit.

In short, give our critics as little ammunition as possible. If there is any excuse to exclude our activities other than religion, they will use it to hide behind. It must be clear and unequivocal that if we are excluded from using these public resources, it is solely because of religious intolerance.

Good luck, and I’ll be seeing you at the library!