Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 9 (1993)

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392

LAMB'S CHAPEL v. CENTER MORICHES UNION FREE SCHOOL DIST.

Opinion of the Court

not rule on this issue, however, for even if the courts below were correct in this respect—and we shall assume for present purposes that they were—the judgment below must be reversed.

With respect to public property that is not a designated public forum open for indiscriminate public use for communicative purposes, we have said that "[c]ontrol over access to a nonpublic forum can be based on subject matter and speaker identity so long as the distinctions drawn are reasonable in

Unkechaug Dance Group

Paul Gibson's Baseball Clinic Moriches Bay Civic Association Moriches Chamber of Commerce's Town Fair Day Center Moriches Drama Club Center Moriches Music Award Associations' 'Amahl & the Night Visitors' Saint John's Track and Field Program Girl Scouts of Suffolk [C]ounty Cub Scouts Pack 23 Boy Scout Troop #414." 770 F. Supp. 91, 93, n. 4 (EDNY 1991).

The Church claimed that the first three uses listed above demonstrated that Rule 10 actually permitted the District property to be used for religious purposes as well as a great assortment of other uses. The first item listed is particularly interesting and relevant to the issue before us. The District Court referred to this item as "a lecture series by the Mind Center, purportedly a New Age religious group." Id., at 93. The Court of Appeals described it as follows:

"The lecture series, 'Psychology and The Unknown,' by Jerry Huck, was sponsored by the Center Moriches Free Public Library. The library's newsletter characterized Mr. Huck as a psychotherapist who would discuss such topics as parapsychology, transpersonal psychology, physics and metaphysics in his 4-night series of lectures. Mr. Huck testified that he lectured principally on parapsychology, which he defined by 'reference to the human unconscious, the mind, the unconscious emotional system or the body system.' When asked whether his lecture involved matters of both a spiritual and a scientific nature, Mr. Huck responded: 'It was all science. Anything I speak on based on parapsychology, analytic, quantum physicists [sic].' Although some incidental reference to religious matters apparently was made in the lectures, Mr. Huck himself characterized such matters as 'a fascinating sideline' and 'not the purpose of the [lecture].' " 959 F. 2d, at 388.

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