What’s happening in New York City shows why we need religious-liberty legislation, like Indiana’s. Bronx Household of Faith, a small, intrepid church ministering to people in a poor area north of Yankee Stadium, challenged New York City’s anti-worship-service policy back in 1995… If New York had a state religious-freedom-restoration act like Indiana and 19 other states now do, the Bronx church could have cited it in its lawsuit, and that would have made it more difficult for the federal appeals court to reject the church’s claim to equal access.

If the crowds clamoring about legalized discrimination in Indiana this week, calling for boycotts of the state, want to see what real prejudice looks like, they should take a look at the laws on the books in a city few of them would ever consider denouncing: New York City. That’s where real discrimination can be found, and it’s a great example of why religious Americans need stronger legal protections along the lines of Indiana’s.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a federal appeals-court decision that upheld a New York City policy that prohibits worship services in public-school buildings. This isn’t just a generally applicable rule that happens to hurt religious communities, though. School buildings can be used after hours and on weekends for nearly anything else — labor-union meetings, neighborhood groups, dance recitals, after-school-study programs, even the filming of episodes of Law and Order, and any other meeting “pertaining to the welfare of the community” — but not worship services.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio says the churches can stay for now, while his administration develops new rules to govern religious use of the empty public schools. But the fact remains that, without critical changes to the city’s policy, the city could evict the churches, synagogues, temples, and other religious groups that have been able to use the schools under an injunction. For the past twelve years, religious groups have been meeting in the schools under a court order that required the city to provide equal access to all community groups meeting in their schools, regardless of the religious content and expression in their meetings. Although the churches enormously appreciate the mayor’s courageous and principled action, in truth, they’re at his mercy.

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