Northside Bible Church v. W. Kenneth Goodson

RIVES, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents the question of the constitutionality of an Alabama statute which would authorize a majority of a local church organization to withdraw local church property from the use and control of the parent church organization. The court below, in an able opinion, held the statute unconstitutional on the ground that it was contrary to the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

The Dumas Act, passed by the Alabama Legislature in 1959, 1 sets forth a right of a sixty-five percent majority group of a local church congregation to “prevent diversion of…