Some excerpts:
"The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday denied en banc rehearing of a Sept. 20 ruling that public libraries whose meeting rooms have been opened to private groups can prohibit use of the rooms for religious worship.
The denial drew a dissent from Judge Jay S. Bybee, joined by Judges Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, Andrew Kleinfeld, Richard Tallman, Consuelo Callahan, Carlos Bea and Milan Smith Jr. "The panel majority's decision permits the government to single out what it calls `mere religious worship' for exclusion from a forum that it has opened broadly for use by community and cultural groups," Bybee wrote. "In so doing, the majority has disregarded equal-access cases stretching back nearly three decades, turned a blind eye to blatant viewpoint discrimination, and endorsed disparate treatment of different religious groups."
The county makes its public library meeting rooms available to the public during library hours for "educational, cultural and community related meetings, programs and activities." The county prohibits use of the rooms for "religious services," although other forms of activity related to religion are permitted....
Faith Center applied for and was granted permission to use a meeting room at the branch library in Antioch. A flyer advertising the event divided the day's activities into a morning "Wordshop" and an afternoon "Praise and Worship" service with a sermon by Hopkins.
Toward the end of the afternoon service, library staff informed Faith Center representatives that they were not permitted to use the meeting room for religious services. The library subsequently rescinded its permission for Faith Center to use the room at a future date.
Faith Center sued to enjoin the county from excluding Faith Center's proposed religious meetings, asserting that the county's policy violated the First Amendment.
In granting the preliminary injunction, District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California reasoned that religious worship is speech protected by the First Amendment, that religious worship cannot be distinguished from other forms of religious speech, and that he exclusion of religious worship from otherwise permissible speech of a religious nature constitutes viewpoint discrimination.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit panel reasoned that the meeting rooms are limited public forums-so that restrictions governing their access are permitted so long as they are viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose served by the rooms-because of the nature of libraries and because the county requires prior permission for access to the meeting rooms, charges a fee, and excludes schools from using the rooms "for instructional purposes as a regular part of the curriculum" and organizations who wish to engage in "religious services."
Source
So a district judge makes a reasonable decision in line with the First Amendment, the 9th Circus overturns him and now refuses to revisit the case. It looks like game, set and match for the 9th Circus to get overtuned by SCOTUS yet again. STACLU has some extended comments on the matter.
