This week in Christian history: Good News Club wins at Supreme Court, SBC revises Baptist Faith and Message
Supreme Court rules in favor of Good News Club – June 11, 2001
This week marks the anniversary of when the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling in favor of allowing the Christian student group Good News Club to meet at public schools.
Known as Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the high court ruled in a vote of 6-3 that a New York school violated the First Amendment when it prohibited GNC from meeting on campus after class.
“Milford’s exclusion of the Club from use of the school, pursuant to its community use policy, constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas for the majority.
“When Milford denied the Good News Club access to the school’s limited public forum on the ground that the Club was religious in nature, it discriminated against the Club because of its religious viewpoint in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.”
Justice David Souter authored a dissent, being joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in which he argued that “there is a good case that Good News’s exercises blur the line between public classroom instruction and private religious indoctrination, leaving a reasonable elementary school pupil unable to appreciate that the former instruction is the business of the school while the latter evangelism is not.”
