Minnesota: "Churches ask court to void state gun law"

[cuchulainn]

from the Minneapolis Star Tribune

http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4180944.html

Churches ask court to void state gun law

Conrad deFiebre, Star Tribune

Published October 29, 2003

A state law, in effect for five months, that prohibits churches and other property owners from barring guns in their parking lots and rental facilities is an unconstitutional infringement on religious freedom, the lawyer for 45 church groups argued Tuesday before the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

"These religious institutions want to worship without firearms on their property," attorney David Lillehaug told a three-judge appeals panel. He contended that the Minnesota Constitution makes a broader guarantee of religious freedom than the U.S. Constitution and that any effort to limit it must be proven vital to state interests.

But, he added, there is evidence neither of a crime problem in church parking lots or rental property, nor that allowing handgun permit holders to bring firearms to those places would make them safer.

Defending the law's constitutionality, Deputy Attorney General Hilary Caligiuri said it provides no criminal penalties or mechanism to enforce it on churches that flout it. Therefore, she said, it makes no real inroads on religious freedom.

The 35-minute hearing at the Minnesota Judicial Center in St. Paul was the latest legal battle to follow enactment, in April, of the state's new handgun law, which makes permits to carry firearms available to most law-abiding, mentally competent adults. Previously, sheriffs and police chiefs wielded broad discretion over such permits.

At issue Tuesday was part of a ruling issued in June by Hennepin County District Judge Marilyn Brown Rosenbaum that denied the churches' requests regarding parking lots and rental property.

Rosenbaum's order also relieved churches of detailed rules in the law that spell out how property owners should warn people that guns are not welcome in their buildings. That part of the order has not been appealed.

Led by Edina Community Lutheran Church, the litigants include Baptist, Buddhist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Jewish, Presbyterian, United Methodist and other Lutheran congregations. Another group of 27 churches, also represented by Lillehaug, a former U.S. attorney for Minnesota, has challenged the gun law in Ramsey County District Court on different constitutional grounds regarding the procedure by which it passed the Legislature.

Focal point

Discussion among the attorneys and judges Tuesday focused on the actual effect of the law on churches.

Lillehaug acknowledged that none of the churches had posted signs barring guns from their parking lots or rental property before the law took effect. But he added that they then relied on trespass law, which he said the new gun law has greatly abridged.

Caligiuri, however, said churches retain the right under trespass law to expel anyone from their property who waves a gun, acts in a disorderly manner or commits other crimes. The trial judge, she said, "made a reasoned and thoughtful analysis. Her order should be affirmed."

The appeals panel of Judges G. Barry Anderson, Roger Klaphake and Bruce Willis has 90 days to issue a ruling.

Conrad deFiebre is at [email protected].

© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune.

 

[StLGlocker]

These religious institutions want to worship without firearms on their property,

Then they can post a sign and shut the up.

Where did Jesus say "Yea, go forth, and whine, and cry, and throw tantrums; blessed is he who avoideth common sense." ?

 

[HankB]

So . . . these churches don't want to post signs indicating that "no guns" is church policy. It sounds like these churches want to have the weight of the LAW behind CHURCH policy instead.

Would someone explain to me how, if the LAW is changed or rewritten to enforce or impose church policy, this would NOT violate separation of church and state?

If I was a member of any of the congregations involved in this suit, I'd inform my pastor in no uncertain terms that he's seen the LAST of any contributions from my household, and that I was donating what I used to give the church to the NRA or GOA instead.

And then I'd do it.