Posted on 05/02/2018 9:12:40 AM PDT by Faith Presses On
I’m reading the briefs in the case, available on the First Liberty Institute web site.
The town says that it was just a zoning issue. Maybe it was, but a Christian religious defense organization took this case on and worked with it for years. They seemed to think it was a religious liberty issue. And remember the SC’s Kelo decision.
According to First Liberty, too, the school has already worked out an agreement with the town to occupy the building this year.
The court case was about damages done to the school due to the time they weren’t allowed to occupy the building.
Here you go: Link
Okay, I read most of the 6th Circuit decision, skimming through what I was already familiar with. Also I read most of the documents from the parties, two from the church, one from the town.
Just some thoughts:
From what I saw, the 6th Circuit decided not to base its decision on the Nazarene Church, the school’s would-be landlord, and the alleged things that it did that the town found allegedly didn’t comply with other permits it had, and which the town’s brief spent a lot of time discussing in great detail. The 6th Circuit considered that the school had its own rights apart from the church.
The school had objected to a lower court finding that because the Naz church was still allowed to operate as a church, there wasn’t a religious freedom violation. IIRC, the 6th Circuit accepted that in its ruling.
The town had partly denied the permit on the basis of increased traffic, but their own experts didn’t agree with that, AFAIK, and the 6th Circuit didn’t cite that as a legitimate reason. The school, from what the legal institute and news reports say, also reached a deal with the town in November 2017 to move into the site (the lawsuit kept proceeding through the courts because the school claimed the original denial hurt it), and I don’t believe the present deal involves the supposed traffic issue (the school has just 150 students).
The present deal does involve the school or church making changes to the parking lot to better accommodate the school’s traffic. From what I read in the school brief, the town always had the option to grant a conditional permit, and in doing so require changes to be made (that’s what it’s done now as it gave the school/church 60 days to reach a plan on changing the parking lot), but instead the town went against the recommendation of its planning board and just denied the permit.
The 6th Circuit rejected the idea that it was a substantial burden for students’ families to go, say, 12 miles out of their way to another facility. The 6th said the school hadn’t done enough in the way of providing proof of the burden on them, and I imagine that’s possible, but it didn’t seem to me, at least, that the Court’s analysis of the evidence they had was that good, either. 12 miles is a pretty good distance. Maybe these courts are a little more interested in protecting the “rights” of towns in these situations. I thought of the Kelo decision here.
The 6th cited in its decision the case of, I think, a synagogue in Florida that sued a local government, I believe, because its members, not using vehicles on the Sabbath, would be forced to walk several extra blocks in the Florida heat, and that particular court found somehow that it was not a substantial burden, even on those members with limited mobility. The 6th agreed with that decision.
And it also came down to that the 6th said the school had only made a claim in its brief about the religious freedom law and not on its broader Constitutional rights, and it had only sued on the basis that the town board didn’t have, in its view, good reason to deny the permit but had done so anyway. The school didn’t have specific evidence of religious discrimination, if I read that right.
And the 6th also bought the lower court judgment that the school wasn’t substantially burdened, or hadn’t entirely proven that it was, by being forced to stay at its original location, which it said was not financially viable. Maybe the school did need more evidence there.
The 6th also talked about that the courts didn’t want to somehow exempt religious organizations from requirements that local governments might want to put on them. On the other hand, I do see the school’s argument that this sort of ruling could possibly be used to deny religious organizations in particular the ability to find a location if local governments don’t need any sort of compelling reason to deny a permit.
The school says that it was the ongoing lawsuit that has forced the town to agree now to allow the school to occupy the church, and I think that’s possible.
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