Apparently the judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are a bunch of masochists; they love the repeated beatings laid down on them by the Supreme Court.

The latest case is Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover. Quin Hilyer of The American Spectator explains:

In its decision, the 9th Circuit majority determined that Faith Center could hold a morning session at the library devoted to “an End-Time call to Prayer for every Believer, and how to pray fervent, effectual Prayers that God hears and answers” — but that it could not hold an afternoon session of the same meeting devoted to “Praise and Worship,” including a sermon.

As fairly summarized by the majority, the district court’s rationale for granting the injunction favorable to Faith Center was that “religious worship is speech protected by the First Amendment; religious worship cannot be distinguished from other forms of religious speech; the exclusion of religious worship from otherwise permissible speech of a religious nature constitutes viewpoint discrimination. …”

Yet, relying largely on a single footnote from the 2001 Supreme Court case of Good News Club v. Milford, the majority ruled that “mere religious worship” is indeed distinguishable from other religious speech and that such worship does not enjoy the same First Amendment protections.

Down that road lies the serious danger that government officials — including power-hungry judges — could be asked repeatedly to decide, case by case, which religiously oriented activities constitute worship and which are mere speech.

You can find the opinion here. [PDF format]

As the dissents in the case note, according to the 9th Circuit's rationale, nontheistic religions (Buddhism, Confucianism, secular humanism, etc.) are not banned from using the Contra Costa Library's meeting rooms, but theistic religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) are.

I can feel another slapdown coming from the Supreme Court -- this one won't even be close.