The American Center for Law and Justice has fought this battle several times: Can a government forbid a home-based Bible study because it is in a home, or because of the number of people attending, or another reason?
And when a government successfully defeats a plan to have in-home worship, can it escape liability simply by claiming it never, really, finally, issued a rejection notice?
That’s the question pending now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ACLJ said the issue is just about the same as the arguments in its previous battles, over a plan in Fairfax County, Virginia, and another in Georgia, and another in Manhattan Beach, California.
There, a resident was told he could have 100 people over to watch “Lord of the Rings,” but not to just worship.
The ACLJ said it has filed a supplemental brief in the case Grand v. City of University Heights to make sure the court has the facts.
In this case, the fight is over “a small, home-based Jewish religious gathering.”
The city has used “an escalating campaign of bureaucratic pressure” to block the plan, and then is escaping “any federal accountability simply because it never issued a final, formal denial.”
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that’s fine.
“We are asking the Supreme Court to say no,” the ACLJ reported.
“Mr. Grand, a Jewish resident, sought a permit to host a small Jewish prayer quorum – a minyan – in his own home. Instead, he faced a campaign of governmental pressure: hostile hearings, demands for architectural drawings, escalating administrative requirements, and open hostility that made continuing the process untenable,” the ACLJ explained.
He eventually was worn down and drained financially, and quit the fight.
Then the Sixth Circuit didn’t blame the city. “It blamed him – holding that he was ‘the author of any chilling effect on his First Amendment interests,'” the ACLJ documented.
The ACLJ said it identified two major errors in the lower court’s claims.
First, the Sixth Circuit “borrowed” a requirement for this case from another dispute that involved the economic loss from a property rule, and simply “grafted” it onto a fight over the First Amendment and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act claim.
“When government pressure causes a reasonable person to cancel a prayer service or abandon a small-group Jewish gathering, the injury is complete the moment it happens. It doesn’t wait for a zoning board to finish its paperwork – and RLUIPA’s own text confirms Congress meant to address ongoing government conduct, not just final decisions,” the ACLJ explained.
Further, that 6th Circuit conclusion doesn’t apply the law to everyone equally.
“Large, well-funded religious institutions with legal departments can absorb years of administrative proceedings to satisfy a finality requirement. The homeowner hosting a weekly prayer group cannot,” it said.
The legal team explained in all its other fights on the issue, “the government backed down before ever issuing a ‘final decision.’ Under the Sixth Circuit’s rule, none of these victims of religious discrimination would ever have had access to a federal courtroom – because the harassment stopped just short of a formal ruling.”
“That result doesn’t protect religious liberty. It rewards municipalities for using process itself as the weapon,” the ACLJ said.
