Hartford Courant - ACLU Court Case To Determine Enfield Graduation Site Begins

By Shawn Beals, Hartford Courant

A federal judge today plans to tour First Cathedral in Bloomfield as part of a hearing on a motion that would block Enfield's two high schools from holding graduation ceremonies at the church next month.

Gregory Stokes, chairman of the Enfield Board of Education, testified for several hours in federal District Court Monday about the school board's decisions to have the ceremonies at the church.

"We were choosing based upon the best place for our students," Stokes said. First Cathedral was the best choice, he said, because it meets all of the criteria the district wants, including price, handicap access, staging areas for students and being able to accommodate a large number of guests.

The school board's vote to use the church was "data-driven," Stokes said, "because of cost, and in that cost it gave us everything in our checklist that we needed."

The board chairman also said he has a verbal agreement with church officials to cover up or remove religious iconography inside the church.

"The overall conversation was that [they] will accommodate everything that needs to be done to hold a graduation ceremony," Stokes told Vincent McCarthy, attorney for the American Center for Law and Justice. The Washington-based evangelical Christian law center is representing the district for free in the case.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit earlier this month on behalf of two Enfield high school seniors and three parents, all requesting anonymity, that alleges the district is endorsing religion by holding the ceremonies there.

The injunction hearing that began Monday should decide whether the district can hold the June 23 and 24 graduations at First Cathedral before a court rules on the lawsuit. The ACLU and Americans United say that while a court is deciding on whether holding graduations at a church is constitutional, the ceremonies should not be held at First Cathedral.

"I think the default situation, especially with the fact that we are three or four weeks away, would probably be in the gymnasium," Stokes said.

In cross-examining Stokes, Alex Luchenitser, senior litigation counsel for Americans United, focused on the amenities and prices that several other sites offered compared with First Cathedral.