University suspends building sale plan when accused of religious discrimination

A university administration, facing accusations of religious discrimination and intolerance, has suspended plans for the sale of an unused school building to a local organization.

It’s because a church, Calvary Chapel Belfast, had submitted the best bid for the structure, which it previously had rented, but lost the opportunity to purchase when the school reneged.

Officials with Liberty Counsel say the University of Maine System now has agreed to pause “the discriminatory sale” of the Hutchinson Center building.

The university had canceled the church’s winning bid after a long list of local officials complained about the church’s religious faith.

The school now has “filed a sworn declaration in U.S. District Court stating it is pausing all negotiations, contracts, sale, or transfer of the property while the church appeals with the university its bidding process decisions,” Liberty Counsel said.

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver said, “Pausing the sale of the property is a good first step. However, the University of Maine System has violated the First Amendment by discriminating against Calvary Chapel Belfast because of its Christian beliefs. The church participated in the bidding processes in good faith, but the university unlawfully discriminated against the church’s religious beliefs. Such discrimination is unlawful and may end up being a costly mistake for the University of Maine System.”

WND had reported when the church started its legal action that the state officials violated their agreement because “local curmudgeons” including a state senator who was on the board of one of the losing bidders coordinated to create a campaign of “religious animosity and religious hostility” against the Christian faith and demand the agreement be voided.

Named as defendants are the university system and a list of its officials, including Ryan Low, Rachel Piper, Robin Cyr and Derek Houtman.

“The conspirators and disappointed bidders did not hide their animus towards the Christian church receiving the bid award, going so far as to say that the church must not receive the property because its ‘very design’ as a Christian church with biblical views was discriminatory and had no place in the community. Some disappointed bidders went so far as to assert that a church cannot even operate in ‘good faith’ concerning alleged nondiscrimination because the church’s website espoused biblical teachings and quoted Scripture. And, to make matters worse, the disappointed bidders and their co conspirators were joined in their religious animosity and religious hostility towards the church and its efforts to purchase the Hutchinson Center by elected officials in Maine. Specifically, Senator Chip Curry—the elected state senator in Belfast where the Hutchinson Center is located—said it was completely inappropriate to have a religious organization own the Hutchinson Center,” the filing charges.

Liberty Counsel said its legal action charges religious discrimination.

The background is that Calvary Chapel Belfast outscored two other competitors and “rightfully earned” the winning bid to solely negotiate the purchase of UMS’s Hutchinson Center, a building no longer in use by the university.

However, the legal team charged, “UMS officials conspired with one of the competing, secular bidders, Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP), to rescind the award over the church’s scriptural beliefs on marriage and sexuality, and subsequently rigged a second bidding process awarding WCAP with the winning bid.”

The filing points out, “The Supreme Court has declared that excluding a religious organization ‘from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution.'”

That, the filing contends, prevents state officials from acting “in hostile ways” to churches.

“This action therefore seeks to vindicate the church’s constitutional rights and restore the church’s rightfully earned opportunity to negotiate the purchase of the Hutchinson Center,” the filing states.

Last August, “Calvary Chapel Belfast submitted its bid to UMS for the Hutchinson Center, a building where it had previously rented space, to expand its congregation and community outreach. In addition to WCAP, the other competing bidder was Future of the Hutchinson Center Steering Committee and Waterfall Arts (FHC-WA). Once UMS announced the church as the winning bidder, both competing bidders sent a series of protest letters to the university attacking the church’s religious beliefs,” the federal court was told.

It was Low, being paid to be the school’s executive for finance and administration, who “summarily” canceled the church’s opportunity.

The report said the pretext used was that the university had an internet hub in the building, an issue the church already had addressed with the university. In fact, the church had offered the university free space for the machinery.