Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98, 34 (2001)

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Cite as: 533 U. S. 98 (2001)

Stevens, J., dissenting

was caused by society's "lack of faith in God"). Instead, it sought only to exclude religious speech whose principal goal is to "promote the gospel." Id., at N18. In other words, the school sought to allow the first type of religious speech while excluding the second and third types. As long as this is done in an evenhanded manner, I see no constitutional violation in such an effort.1 The line between the various categories of religious speech may be difficult to draw, but I think that the distinctions are valid, and that a school, particularly an elementary school, must be permitted to draw them.2 Cf. Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Ed. of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign Cty., 333 U. S. 203, 231 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., concurring) ("In no activity of the State is it more vital to keep out divisive forces than in its schools . . .").

This case is undoubtedly close. Nonetheless, regardless of whether the Good News Club's activities amount to "wor-ship," it does seem clear, based on the facts in the record, that the school district correctly classified those activities as falling within the third category of religious speech and therefore beyond the scope of the school's limited public forum.3 In short, I am persuaded that the school district

1 The school district, for example, could not, consistently with its present policy, allow school facilities to be used by a group that affirmatively attempted to inculcate nonbelief in God or in the view that morality is wholly unrelated to belief in God. Nothing in the record, however, indicates that any such group was allowed to use school facilities.

2 "A perceptive observer sees a material difference between the light of day and the dark of night, and knows that difference to be a reality even though the two are separated not by a bright line but by a zone of twilight." Buirkle v. Hanover Ins. Cos., 832 F. Supp. 469, 483 (Mass. 1993).

3 The majority elides the distinction between religious speech on a particular topic and religious speech that seeks primarily to inculcate belief. Thus, it relies on Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995), as if that case involved precisely the same type of speech that is at issue here. But, while both Wide Awake, the organization in Rosenberger, and the Good News Club engage in a mixture

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