This is being glossed over because we are arguing the general case but it’s what makes this law so obviously unconstitutional. If they were passing legislation similar to the above mentioned Illinois campus police act that enabled any church to start a police force then maybe some of these arguments defending it would work (I still doubt it). But they are clearly favouring one church.
If they made a more general law though, I have a good idea of where the Scientologists and Moonies are going to move their headquarters to.
Was going to add in my above but missed the window…even if that state passed legislation to allow that church, or even all churches in that state, to create a police department, they would be hobbled by the inability to access federal (and probably, by extension, state) criminal justice systems.
I can’t be sure. It might just take a change of a definition in the regulations rather than an actual change in law. Just have “campus police” include religious campuses.
All churches/religious institutions, or just ones of a certain size or above? Is there a legal definition of “campus”, because I’ve heard references to “Nike Campus” referring to their large complex.
Which they would continue to do if they had their own police. I have not seen any suggestion that the membership wants to replace the police - just supplement it with their own force.
The same political logic that says we accept private universities having their own police force, or shopping malls hiring off-duty police, or banks having security guards.
School campus police cannot discriminate when it comes to sex, race or religious preference. Would the church police have to follow these rules, or would they be allowed to recruit “in-house”?
So university police (which became common during the heightened public yourh protests in the 60’s and 70’s), the use of off-duty police security (which varies wildly even between municipalities) and banks having guards (going on since the dawn of banks) all have the same political logic as the never-happened-before church police?
I tried to look up the Federal law concerning Equal Employment Opportunity in this case and came up with nothing … the government can never take religious preference into account when hiring (Title VII (?)) … but I couldn’t find this restriction for private institutions … apparently the Catholic Church can require any new priests hired to be Catholic …
How this applies to a Church Police Department may well have to be answered in the courts … or I just failed to find the appropriate laws (more than likely) …
I think that a similar justification can apply for this church. In addition, it wants to have a decided force on its campus rather than straining the local town’s police force, which also would be better for the locality, I’d imagine.
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Sorry, I wanted to respond to this since you addressed my question directly.
I have trouble believing a wealthy Presbyterian church is a very distinct community from its surrounding affluent Burmingham suburb. Not compared to a mass of 18-25 yr olds entering the adult world plopped in the middle of a working city. It’s certainly not a justification that the proponents in the state legislature are making. All I saw in the article was “why not?” and “we want more security”.
I wonder how much of it comes from the fact that they run 2 private schools with 2000 students. It very well may be that they’re coming at it from the same angle that many public school districts approach it from (many of whom have their own police departments around here).
I seriously doubt it’s Sunday morning crowd control that’s driving the desire for their own police dept.