Clergymen Are Among Arrested Protesters January 5, 2012, 4:04 pm Four pastors, including a member of City Council, were among seven men arrested Thursday morning in front of the city Law Department during a protest of the city's ban on allowing churches to hold worship services in public school buildings, the police and organizers said. All were charged with trespassing, including Councilman Fernando Cabrera, a Democrat who leads a church in the Bronx. About 20 demonstrators gathered in front of the Law Department's headquarters at 100 Church Street to protest the policy, and after about an hour, seven of them sat down in front of the building and refused to leave until they were arrested, the police said. The city's policy emerged intact last month when the United States Supreme Court declined to review a lower court's decision in a suit brought by a small Bronx evangelical church that has been holding its Sunday services at Public School 15 since 2002. As the case made its way through the system, the city's ban was put on hold, and some 160 congregations used school buildings for worship services last school year. They have been given a Feb. 12 deadline to leave the schools. "Today we are seeing the first indication that the churches in New York City, and nationally, are awakening," Mr. Cabrera said in a statement. Together, we will fight these restrictive laws that discriminate against hundreds of thousands of church-goers.