The Cardinals have apparently had a “Faith Night” at their ballpark although I don’t know the circumstances. Tonight the Pirates did something similar at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. After the game whoever wanted to could gather in a 6 section area and listen to Pirate manager Clint Hurdle, one or more coaches and several players speak to the gathering on the importance of their faith as it relates to the development of their professional careers or some such similar subject. Their faith in seemingly every case is Christianity. No additional charge is being made to reimburse the stadium authority for this particular use of the facilities and this park was paid for, in large part, with tax dollars. Is this legal, constitutional or no?
Yes.
Legal…yes.
Constitutional…yes.
Stupid…yes.
Yes it was paid for with tax dollars; however, it was a loan which the Cards are suppose to pay back. The Cards own Busch Stadium and not the government.
Also, the government owns tons of property that people are perfectly free to stand on and express their views. I’m not sure why this is a problem.
Yeah; if I put a soapbox on the sidewalk (owned by the Government) and started talking about my faith, do you think that would violate the Constitution?
And that’s on land that actually is owned by the Government. The stadium isn’t.
It’s marketing, pure and simple. They do it at Arena Football games at the TB Times Forum (built with tax dollars), Rays games at Tropicana Field (built with tax dollars) and Bucs games at Ray,nod James Stadium (built with tax dollars.)
Guess what, when the Bucs sold out every game, no “Faith” nights. Fenway Park, where every game is a sellout, no “Faith” nights – you get the pictures.
As for the legality/constitutionality, the teams in question lease the property and can do whatever they want.
Yeah, down here the NHL team and the minor league baseball team both have Faith Nights to bring in the church groups. The NFL team doesn’t have to.
Well in my mind it is a problem because the state of Pennsylvania financed the building of the park (not entirely, but mostly), it is not a loan. Yes people are free to express their views while standing on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse until the police come but the baseball stadium was built for playing baseball and for hosting revenue producing events, not for helping a private enterprise promote a religious viewpoint.
The “Faith Night” is a revenue producing event. It is designed to increase ticket sales.
I fail to see the problem. They (the ball club) isn’t forcing anyone to participate, or even making it a condition for watching the game. It’s after the game. You don’t like it, you can leave.
You sound to be pretty hard-core anti-religion. The constitution was written to protect the people from this, it’s called religious freedom.
excavating (for a mind)
This is pretty much why atheists often have a bad reputation.
(By saying this, I am not excusing or defending all of the religious asshattery that is out there)
Until the police come and do what? :dubious:
It is perfectly legal to stand in a public place and express your religious views (or lack thereof). Freedom of expression applies to religious viewpoints.
Any limitations would have to be content neutral. Limits on volume or use of sound amplification equipment might apply. You cannot obstruct a public road or prevent entry into the courthouse. But that applies regardless of the content of your message.
The government uses tax dollars to build a stadium or arena (usually floats a bond issue with a nice rate of return for investors.)
Government (city, county, state) then leases the property to a pro sports team. Pro sports team can do whatever it wants within the law during those times that they are leasing the property. The same venue is rented out to Billy Graham Crusade, Republican or Democratic National Committee, Monster Truck event, Justin Beeber Concert (O.K., for this there ought to be a strict prohibitive law) – and the list goes on and on and on. At the same time, the government agency (Stadium Authority) is likely collecting revenue from the adjacent parking garage and vendors in the venue.
A well run and managed sports facility can (and should) be a real money maker for the government and a means of lowering local taxes. And a tax free return of over 5% in some cases on a highly rated bond is good for religious and non-religious alike.
So what you are saying then, correct me if I am getting the wrong message, that the government could theoretically construct a live Nativity scene every year in the city/county building and charge admission and if it were profitable and no one was made to see it that it would be legal?
The government, no. Private citizens, yes. Essentially.
No. But if the city builds an outdoor amphitheater and leases it out to community groups without any discriminatory practices in their leasing practices then an athiest group could rent it and hold a “Festivus” celebration.
FYI, the LA Atheists group meet at the Balboa Soets Center – a City of LA owned facility.
There is a public school 500 feet from my back door, and a church meets there every Sunday. They rent the auditorium (for the service, not all the time), the school district is the landlord and everything is completely legal and constitutional.
For that matter my church gives the Board of Elections space for a polling place, and that doesn’t violate anything, either.
That was actually done here in WA (until a few years ago), but no admission was charged, the displays were paid for and set up by private religious organizations, and all religions were allowed to set up displays (though they had to go through a permit process several weeks prior). We had jewish, islamic, christian, and a few other displays. It worked just fine and everybody was playing nice together until an idiot* (from out-of-state, no less) decided his atheist display would include a message describing religion as a shackle on peoples’ minds. After that, the governor decided to discontinue the practice because all people couldn’t play nice, and excluding hateful or intentionally offensive displays wasn’t legally viable.
I think they did something like that in San Diego until it was declared illegal by the courts. There was/is a cross on Mt. Soledad that was on government land until a suit to prevent it. Then the governing body tried to sell the land and the cross to a civic group to maintain it which was also decided to be illegal. Now the federal government has stepped in and taken control of the property under eminent domain and had the land declared to be a war memorial. The case is still undecided but the last ruling is that the cross is unconstitutional.
So perhaps private citizens cannot do what the government cannot do on government property.