That’s begging the question. If the state is allowing one kind of non-profit institution to have its own police but not a religious one, that’s a violation of the First Amendment.
Regards,
Shodan
I’d like to see Bricker’s take on this. I strongly suspect that you’re mistaken, Shodan.
Because trying to separate Church from State would be downright unconstitutional, right?
Treating non-profits the same is not a violation of church and state.
Regards,
Shodan
Ok, I’ll bite: How is having a police force a first amendment issue?
What does state-sanctioned mean in this context? Boston University, a private institution, has a police force.
Harvard and MIT have similar arrangements although the details may be different. All are private universities.
Police powers do not expand because the cops are religious.
Not only private colleges, but religious colleges (such as Georgetown and Notre Dame) have their own police departments.
This is also why you don’t see a shit ton of college students in jail for smoking pot. Campus police bust people with pot all the time but they never seem to send anyone to jail for it.
If other non-profits like private universities can have their own security, but religious organizations can’t, that’s a First Amendment issue.
The government may not treat religious organizations better than other organizations. They also may not treat them worse. There are, in other words, two clauses in the First that refer to religion.
Regards,
Shodan
The church police is likely to be congregants who undergo training and don’t get paid much if at all.
Can you point out a religious college or university that operates this way with their in-house police force?
They can treat them differently without violating the first amendment. Universities are subjected to scrutiny and laws directed at them that would never be done to churches. Could title IX be struck down because it only applies to schools? First amendment!
Forbidding churches from having a police force does not impede the exercise of religion.
We forbid churches from being too political. Political speech combined with religious speech seems like a slam dunk for the first amendment but its not.
I think we could deny a church the ability to have their own police department without running afoul of the first amendment.
I also think we could permit a church to have its own police department without running afoul of the first amendment.
I don’t know how relevant people would find this but churches are required to be withholding agents for payroll taxes. They are effectively acting on behalf of the government to collect taxes. Is that relevant at all to the conversation?
No but can you point me to a church run police force?
I can certainly point you to churches where the security team is all congregants.
But we are talking about religious universities in this case-universities run by paid personnel, from the lowliest janitor to the University Prez.
Are there any commuter colleges with their own police forces?
IM(very limited)E with campus police forces - the campus was, in some ways, almost a city. People lived there, they ate on campus, slept on campus, worked on campus, spent their free time on campus, etc. The college was its own community and kind of a bubble. It made sense to have an internal police force. So, do commuter colleges that are less of a mini-city and more of a largish office park have their own police forces? Or do they rely on the city’s police force?
I will admit that something about a church with a police force rubs me the wrong way. Security guards are fine and I can’t understand why they’re not sufficient.
One thing is that a lot of the non-governmental police force requirements center around the officers being duly licensed LEOs in their particular states. So they will have had to attend a police academy or whatever other training is required in their state and have undergone whatever vetting and certification that is required. Maybe they’re congregants, maybe they’re not, but either way, if it’s a proper police force, they’re more than likely going to be fully licensed LEOs.
Second, the courts will still be the usual city, county and state courts, and without a jail, there’s not too much danger that religiously influenced arrests will happen- what are they going to do- drag some guy down to county because he’s an atheist? That’ll probably happen exactly one time, that guy will be turned loose promptly, and the state/county will come down on the church police force like a ton of bricks.
…no
not even close to being true, when talking about private universities
yes
no
they’re organizationally independent of any municipal police force
It’s plain that you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, so why are you pretending that you do?