{"id":29288,"date":"2025-10-03T12:01:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T16:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=29288"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:01:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T16:01:34","slug":"federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-church-after-public-charter-school-cancels-its-lease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/10\/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-church-after-public-charter-school-cancels-its-lease","title":{"rendered":"Federal Court Rules in Favor of Church After Public Charter School Cancels its Lease"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_29291\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29291\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/10\/School-Bible_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29291\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/10\/School-Bible_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29291\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A federal court has sided with an Idaho church after a public charter school canceled the church\u2019s lease. Truth Family Bible Church\u00a0had rented the gymnasium at Sage International\u2019s Middleton, ID campus for Sunday services until last year. Sage then canceled the lease after it began applying for $15 million in bonds through the Idaho Housing and Finance Association (IHFA). The application was flagged by the IHFA with concerns that Truth Family\u2019s lease with the school could violate the Blaine Amendment, which prohibits religious institutions from receiving taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n<p>Chief U.S. District Court Judge David Nye ruled that the cancelation violated Truth Family\u2019s First Amendment rights and called the decision a \u201clapse in judgment.\u201d \u201cIHFA and Sage\u2019s motivations for terminating Truth Family\u2019s lease, whether reasonable or not, were still a violation of Truth Family\u2019s constitutional right,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idahoednews.org\/school-choice\/federal-judge-sides-with-idaho-church-in-blaine-amendment-lawsuit\/\">wrote Nye<\/a>. He said the cancelation showed a \u201cpreference for non-religion\u201d and \u201cstifled\u201d the church\u2019s religious speech.<\/p>\n<p>Nye declined to rule on the constitutionality of the Blaine Amendment as a whole, something representatives for Truth Family asked for. Despite the narrow ruling, Katherine Hartley, who argued for the church, said her clients were \u201cthrilled.\u201d \u201cNo church, religious institution or person of faith should be punished or disqualified for being religious,\u201d she said in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idahoednews.org\/school-choice\/federal-judge-sides-with-idaho-church-in-blaine-amendment-lawsuit\/\">an email<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Republican Attorney General Ra\u00fal Labrador, who intervened in the case, stated he was \u201cpleased\u201d as well. \u201cGovernment agencies cannot discriminate against religious organizations simply because they\u2019re religious. Truth Family Bible Church deserved the same treatment as any secular group, and we\u2019re glad the court recognized this,\u201d he said. Sage International has not responded to the ruling, but Jason Lantz, a spokesman for IFHA, said the group welcomed \u201cclarity.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIdaho Housing\u2019s goal has been \u2014 and is \u2014 to comply with state and federal law in our bond financing activities. We welcome the legal clarity the court\u2019s ruling provides, helping to ensure that this type of issue doesn\u2019t arise in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ruling is just the latest in an ongoing battle for determining whether religious funds can go towards religious institutions. In May, <a href=\"https:\/\/statecourtreport.org\/our-work\/analysis-opinion\/after-us-supreme-court-ruling-its-back-states-laboratories-religious\">the Supreme Court split 4-4<\/a> in a ruling on whether or not an Oklahoma religious charter school violated the Constitution. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case. The split kicked the decision back to the states, upholding Oklahoma\u2019s ban against the school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal court has sided with an Idaho church after a public charter school canceled the church\u2019s lease. Truth Family Bible Church\u00a0had rented the gymnasium at Sage International\u2019s Middleton, ID campus for Sunday services until last year. Sage then canceled the lease after it began applying for $15 million in bonds through the Idaho Housing&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":29291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Federal Court Rules in Favor of Church After Public Charter School Cancels its Lease<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A federal judge ruled in favor of Truth Family Bible Church, saying its lease cancelation by a charter school violated First Amendment rights.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/10\/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-church-after-public-charter-school-cancels-its-lease\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal Court Rules in Favor of Church After Public Charter School Cancels its Lease\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A federal judge ruled in favor of Truth Family Bible Church, saying its lease cancelation by a charter school violated First Amendment rights.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/10\/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-church-after-public-charter-school-cancels-its-lease\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-03T16:01:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" 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