Word: vetoes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...SUPREME COURT'S 8-1 decision Monday to overturn a Massachusetts law allowing churches to veto liquor licenses within a 500-ft. radius of the church is not surprising. The case was a clear-cut example of violation of church-state separation. More fascinating though is the glimpse the whole case gives of a few local churches, waning in influence, trying to exert a little supposed moral leadership by using the power of the state...
...made on grounds of separation of church and state, wisely drawing the distinction between states like New York that simply decide not to allow alcohol licensees to establishments within 500 feet of a church, and states like Massachusetts, which gives the churches the political power of exercising a selective veto if they wish. The Massachusetts law gives churches unwarranted political authority, while in New York, churches are simply passive actors...
Writing for the Court Burger said that the veto provision "substitutes the unilateral and absolute power of a church for the reasoned decision-making of a public legislative body acting on evidence and guided by standards...
...Massachusetts law also allows such veto power over liquor licenses to schools within 500 feet of a license-seeker, but yesterday's Supreme Court ruling did not involve that aspect...
...church spokesman, Rev. Peter V. Conley of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, said yesterday that the veto issue "has never been a priority item for the Archdiocese of Boston. It has been a matter of one parish addressing its own local problems...