[Tired of Taxes]

You make an interesting point comparing public schools/buildings to public roads/parks.

I think that public schools and buildings, even off-hours, are another matter because the buildings themselves are intended for gov't activities alone (public education, and so on). Thus, a political or religious group practicing there would constitute a violation of the First Amendment.

[Yardstick]

I think that public schools and buildings, even off-hours, are another matter because the buildings themselves are intended for gov't activities alone (public education, and so on).

I'm not so sure this intention exists.

In my community, parents take their kids to play at the public elementary school's playground and joggers run laps on the public high school's track. When I was a kid, my AYSO soccer team had practice on the grounds of my public middle school. These are all public, non-government uses of the schools' facilities. It seems to me that off-hours use of a school gymnasium for a Boy Scout meeting would be the same in principle.

[RonF]

It has already been established in law, in a case regarding a Bible study group that went to the Supreme Court, that as long as a public accomodation allows any groups to use their facility, they must allow all to do so (within the bounds of safety, facility scheduling, etc.). The BSA must be granted the same rights to meet in public schools, after school hours, as any other not-for-profit group.

Which, in one Salt Lake City school district that had a gay student support group apply to meet in it, caused said school district to deny all extra-curricular groups from meeting at it, rather than allow the gay student support group to meet there.