In Theory: Should an Alabama church be allowed to start its own police force?
A church in Alabama seeks to establish its own police force.
The Alabama Senate passed a bill Tuesday, April 11, granting Briarwood Presbyterian Church the right to start its own police force — of one or more persons — to protect the church and its ministries, the New York Times reports.
The church has more than 4,000 members and 40 ministries, including schools, from preschool through the 12th grade.
The church stated in a February news release that their request was in response to mass shootings in churches and schools, and that its goal is to “mirror” private universities, which have the right to hire police officers.
Critics say the law would violate the 1st Amendment, which prohibits any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”
Q. What do you think of Briarwood Presbyterian Church’s request?
I am an advocate for absolute separation of church and state, so it was my initial inclination to object to this bill. However, I also considered the question of — if this church is willing to completely pay for the police force — would it indeed be an encroachment upon the constitutional imperative not to support an establishment of religion?
Looking into it further, I discovered one important thing the articles cited did not mention. This church has a long history of racism and homophobia and a strong socially conservative bent. State police must remain objective, as they are tasked with protecting everyone equally and not warping and bowing the law to benefit some over others. I came to the conclusion that giving any religious institution the right to co-opt state police responsibilities for their private purposes is absolutely a violation of the 1st Amendment’s establishment clause. Whether or not private universities should have their own police, especially those established by religious orders, is also something I believe should be reexamined.
The bottom line is, the regular police are there to protect everyone. This church can call the local police at any time just as any other citizen or institution who feels threatened. The local police are certainly aware of the outsized threats against religious institutions and have undoubtedly already taken steps to protect everyone in the community. If this church feels like it needs more protection, I am uncertain what prevents them from hiring a private security force that works with the local police, as opposed to its own police force.
Joshua Lewis Berg
Humanist Celebrant
Glendale
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I stand with ACLU’s opposition to Briarwood Presbyterian Church creating a private police force. The bill is a clear violation of the separation of church and state. The effort to create an armed fiefdom adjacent to the city of Birmingham, which is 74% African American, in the 90% white enclave of Vestavia Hills, is a negative legacy of racial segregation that should not be validated by law.
According to “The Root,” a website that covers issues of concern to African Americans, Briarwood is the center of the Presbyterian Church of America, a pro-segregation Southern faction that refused to desegregate and thus left the larger Presbyterian denomination in 1973. The PCA apologized for its past racism — in 2016. Briarwood’s current leader, Harry Reeder, defends flying the Confederate battle flag and has appeared before racist groups like the Sons of the Confederacy. The 80-year-old state senator who has proposed the legislation, J.T. Waggoner Jr., lives in Vestavia Hills and is the son of the Birmingham Public Works Commissioner who served as a key ally of infamous Police Commissioner “Bull” Connor; together they connived to allow the Ku Klux Klan to attack the Freedom Riders in 1961. His bill allows for the creation of a religious militia able to impose its version of the law on Briarwood property unaccountable to state government.
This sort of vigilantism goes back to the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, when the Klan used violence to reinstate white supremacist state governments. Racial segregation was not just a southern phenomenon: in 1947 when Quaker journalist Drew Pearson organized the Freedom Train, a traveling exhibit of founding documents such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, he prevented the train from stopping in two segregated cities: Birmingham, Ala. and Glendale, Calif.
Hate crimes are on the rise. At least 295 people have been killed by police thus far in 2017. The return of white supremacist vigilantism should be opposed by people of faith and conscience everywhere. Black Lives Matter.
David L. Hostetter, Ph.D.
Vice President, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills
La Crescenta
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The church’s request for permission to hire its own police officers is both justifiable and appropriate. In light of Sandy Hook and other recent incidents of indescribable violence against innocent people, the dear men, women and children of Briarwood Presbyterian Church have the right to assemble in peace and security.
Their goal is to have first responders on site who will coordinate with, not totally replace, local law enforcement. I see that not only is the church allowed to appoint one or more police officers, but that the church will also employ them as well. That means, I take it, that public funds will not be used to pay them.
The left-wing accusation that this is a violation of the 1st Amendment is ridiculous. Just who is the ACLU trying to protect? Certainly not the people of Briarwood Presbyterian Church. Sad, but no longer surprising, that they place their agenda above real peoples’ security. Not unlike the Pharisees who, one Sabbath, watched Jesus hoping that he would heal a man with a withered hand so that they could accuse him of performing work on the day God set aside for rest and worship. Knowing their intent, Jesus asked them: “‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?’ But they kept silent” (Mark 3:4). So we ask, should not the people of Briarwood Presbyterian Church be allowed to do all they can to save lives?
Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank
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Briarwood Presbyterian Church could hire a security company to provide guards and other safety measures on its properties. Instead the church seems determined to prove a point, as does their state legislative representative who persists in pursuing this right which would only apply to their church. A similar bill was passed by both the Senate and House of the Alabama Legislature in 2015 but wasn’t signed into law by then-governor Robert Bentley, who recently resigned in an ethics scandal.
I have serious concerns about putting the power to make arrests, let alone guns, into the hands of individuals not vetted, trained or supervised by a police department, or by a licensed security firm.
The ACLU objection to the bill states it would “unnecessarily carve out special programs for religious organizations and inextricably intertwine state authority and power with church operations,” and the organization is confident that if passed, the law would be immediately struck down as unconstitutional in federal court. I’m sure the church’s lawyers and the Alabama Senate realize this as well. Stretching the envelope of church-state separation, not safety, is the motivation here.
Briarwood’s efforts would be better directed toward improving police services in the low-tax, small-government state of Alabama and passing more stringent gun laws.
Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose
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That Bryant Presbyterian Church wants to have its own police force is not violating the 1st Amendment. It is merely hiring a private agency to detain law breakers. The ability for all Americans to detain lawbreakers is a part of the penal code. The concept of “citizen’s arrest” falls under the responsibilities of all citizens of the United States and their guests.
Further, the church is only requiring its “police” force to arrest lawbreakers on their grounds. The “police” force has no jail and therefore must transport the prisoners to the local magistrate.
The time and effort spent expressing the fears that a religious organization would try and take over civil prerogatives would be better spent looking at secular organizations that use religious terms to couch their political agendas that seek to remove 1st Amendment rights.
Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank
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I think it’s a fine request, and why there should be any backlash, I can’t understand. As others have pointed out, this church is the size of a small town. It has every manner of resource which draws people by the thousands. I noted that it had a library, nursery, seminary, counseling center, soup kitchen, Christian school, music ministry, and they even have their own Briarwood Ballet. I can’t name all the various things they have going on there, but the place is immense, and such a place needs a police presence.
All churches are publicly accessed, and all churches welcome the public to whatever they offer there because the point of church existence is to build Christian community. That only happens by strangers coming onto the property, buying into the message and then becoming citizens of the town, so to speak. Despite the many who come and embrace a given church’s ministry, there are others who simply come to avail themselves of free stuff, exploit the trusting people and sometimes do them serious harm. Small churches usually figure some plan to spring in the case of such an emergency, but a church of 4,000 is going to need more than a couple of elders muscling a violent outsider to the floor. It may require weapons and police powers.
As any of us know, when we report that a neighbor’s house alarm has gone off, the police will call that a low priority and come when they get around to it. In the meantime, the house is ransacked. If there is an assault, a gun shooting, or anything else that takes only minutes to transpire, the police sirens are heard shortly thereafter, faintly in the distance. Now if Briarwood is wanting a consistent police presence that they are even willing to pay for, why is that unconstitutional? The government isn’t promoting Presbyterianism, it’s only providing the qualifications for the church to be adequately policed. If this request fails, and 4,000 citizens, who happen to be Christians, do not get protection, perhaps that is an example of the government working against a particular faith. And if a mass shooting happens and the police don’t make it until after the carnage, then maybe the government will be liable for not protecting 4,000 tax payers and for facilitating their victimization. Protect the people, whatever their religion; it’s the government’s job.
Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga