[8-10-02]

PresbyWeb recently took note of a report from Southern California that a federal judge has blocked the city of Cypress in its effort to condemn church-owned land to allow for the building of a new Costco store. Gene TeSelle comments that this points to a major legal controversy brewing.

According to a report in the Orange County Register, "U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said there is strong evidence that Cypress' attempt to build a Costco on land where Cottonwood Christian Center of Los Alamitos wants to build a $50 million worship center violates a controversial federal law that restricts cities' ability to block church building projects."

The case grew out of a suit by the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, well-funded conservative advocacy groups working to expand individual rights against actions by local governments on behalf of the common interest.

TeSelle adds this comment (but you may want to look at the Register's report first):

Toward the end of the article, law professor Marci Hamilton points out that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton during the campaign year of 2000, inadvertently encouraged lawsuits by letting churches recover attorneys' fees if they win.

In a number of the cases filed by the Becket Fund, planning and zoning officials are sued personally as well as in their official capacity, putting all their assets on the line.

(The Fund can be found on the web at both Becketfund and RLUIPA.)

The RLUIPA replaces RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, struck down by the Supreme Court in 1997 for exceeding the constitutional powers of Congress. The new act tries to avoid that by focusing on two specific issues, but it obviously is far-reaching in its effects. It has not yet been tested all the way to the Supreme Court.

Most legal scholars feel that the Court tilted the wrong way in the Smith decision in 1990, emphasizing the force of "neutral laws of general applicability" in a Native American peyote case. RFRA went to the other extreme by requiring that government avoid "substantially burdening" the exercise of religion, which means that any law must be in furtherance of a "compelling government interest" and that it be pursued with the "least restrictive means."

Churches in their institutional mode, including the PC(USA), have wanted to gain maximum freedom in zoning, land use regulation, and historic preservation. But this often puts them on a collision course with neighborhood organizations as well as city or county jurisdictions. While some restrictions may be based on prejudice, the law requires that they be based on good planning principles that are applicable to all property owners. At times religious congregations seem to want special privileges and wrap themselves in the First Amendment to get them; when that happens, they may look to their communities like nothing more than obtrusive bits of real estate, administered by truculent lawyers.

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PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

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