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QFC Defends Religious Liberty in Court
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Below are the cases in which the Queens Federation of Churches has joined as a Friend of the Court, with links to case summaries and copies of the amicus curiae briefs.
Churches Have the Same Rights as Other Organizations in Renting Public Property
The NYC Board/Department of Education has refused to rent space in public school buildings after hours to churches for worship, notwithstanding that nonprofit community groups are permitted to rent space. The Queens Federation of Churches has objected to this discrimination and filed amicus support in the following cases. In Deeper Life Christian Fellowship, the church was protected under a temporary injunction for 13 months to continue to rent PS 60 in Woodhaven, Queens, while its own building was being expanded. In Bronx Household of Faith, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari and did not hear the appeal from the Second Circuit decision against the church. Subsequently, based on an intervening decision in Good News Club v. Milford Central School District , the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, in 1999, an injunction forbidding the Board of Education from enforcing its rule against renting for worship. Notwithstanding that, the Department of Education, having evicted the Church once again, is appealing its loss of another lawsuit in Federal District Court.
Deeper
Life Christian Fellowship v. Board of Education of the City of New York
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Amicus
Letter filed November 2, 1987
The
Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York
– SUMMARY
Supreme Court of the United States
Amicus
Brief filed March 23, 1998
Full
Gospel Tabernacle v. Community School District 27
U.S. Court of
Appears for the 2nd Circuit
Amicus
Brief filed May 26, 1999
A Church’s Ministry to the Homeless Should Not be Subject to Police Harassment
Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church operates a homeless shelter which is limited by the City to 10 beds inside. It permitted homeless persons to sleep on the steps and sidewalk in the overnight hours with staff available to supervise and assure clean-up each morning. The Guiliani Administration sent the NYPD to move the homeless off of church property. The Church filed a lawsuit alleging the City was interfering with its ministry. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Church and issued an injunction forbidding the NYPD to take action against the peaceable use by the homeless of the church’s hospitality.
Fifth
Avenue Presbyterian Church v. City of New York – SUMMARY
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit
Amicus
Brief filed March 15, 2002
A Religious Society Has the Right to Determine its Own Manner of Governance
A former trustee sued the Hindu Temple Society of North America (Flushing, NY) in New York State Supreme Court in an effort to retain a seat on the board of trustees. The Court appointed a referee to oversee an election by the “membership.” However, the Hindu Temple Society has no membership – which is customary among Hindu organizations; the Society, like many other nonprofit organizations, has a self-perpetuating board of trustees, Nevertheless, the Court ordered that the referee should create a membership roll. He required the Temple to mail membership applications to anyone who had signed its visitors book over the past 30 years and he, as a non-Hindu, would then determine the Society’s voting membership entitled to elect trustees. Because this interferes with the right of a religious society to determine its own method of governance, the Queens Federation of Churches joined with others in urging the Federal District Court to intervene. It did not, preferring to let the State Court process run its course at which time a ripe appeal might be in order. The matter is still pending.
The
Hindu Temple Society of North America v. Supreme Court of the State of New York
– SUMMARY
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Amicus
Letter filed September 2, 2004
RFRA
– Religious Freedom Restoration Act
RLUIPA – Religious Land Use
and Institutionalized Persons Act
In response to the notorious decision of the United States Supreme Court in Employment Division v. Smith (April 1990), in which the Court ruled that the First Amendment did not apply to laws of “general applicability” which had the unintended effect of interfering with one’s free exercise of religion, the U.S. Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The Court’s very narrow reading of the First Amendment as applicable only to laws actually intended to inhibit freedom of religion was seen as the end of any Constitutional right to religious liberty.
RFRA sought to establish by statute a balancing test that the Court previously had found to be required by the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause: A religious claimant had the burden of first proving that a law or regulation placed a substantial burden on the exercise of a sincerely-held religious belief. If the plaintiff’s burden were met, the government entity would then be required to show that a) the regulation or law at issue serves a “compelling” state purpose and b) there is no way to achieve that this “compelling” purpose in a manner less restrictive to the religious practice. Sometimes referred to as “strict scrutiny,” this was the standard of determination previously announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sherbert v. Verner.
In 1997, in City of Boerne v. Flores, the U.S. Supreme Court held RFRA to be unconstitutional as applied to State and Local laws; its application to Federal laws remains in force. Congress held additional hearings and determined that the areas of greatest concern and conflict between church and state at the local level were in land use regulations (zoning and landmarking) and with respect to the religious rights of prisoners and residents of mental institutions. Congress responded by enacting the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. In RLUIPA, Congress articulated the same balancing standards as in RFRA (the Sherbert test), but limiting its application to regulations affecting land use and institutionalized persons. In both RFRA and RLUIPA, Congress provided for the recovery of legal costs for the religious claimant when it was found that the government violated religious rights under the law.
The Queens Federation of Churches has joined with a broad spectrum of religious organizations and secular advocates for religious liberty in urging a robust application of both RFRA and RLUIPA to effect the greatest freedom for the exercise of religious practice. Briefs in the following cases argue in favor of the constitutionality of RLUIPA (in the face of counter-arguments by government parties) and in favor of its application to the facts of the particular case. In general, the amicus briefs to not go to the merits of the cases at bar although it would be fair to assume that favorable application of RLUIPA would yield the result sought by the religious party.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty maintains an excellent website chronicling developments related to these laws at RLUIPA.com.
A Church Has a Right to Celebrate its Sacraments
The Federal Government forbid the importation from Brazil of hoesca tea, an ingredient of which is on the list of controlled substances. It is the sacramental beverage of a congregation in New Mexico related to a traditional Brazilian religious community with a long history of using hoesca tea. The congregation filed suit under RFRA to secure its right to worship according to its traditions and teachings. Both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the congregation’s right over the vigorous objection of the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice.
O
Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal v. John Ashcroft –
SUMMARY
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit - February 20, 2004
Amicus
Brief filed February 21, 2003
Gonzales
v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal
Supreme Court
of the United States
Amicus
Brief filed September 2005
Prisoners Are Entitled to Access to Religious Ministration
A case where several prisoners, each an adherent of different minority faiths, sought to force Ohio to accommodate their religious needs. The State of Ohio made a facial challenge of the constitutionality of that part of RLUIPA affecting institutionalize persons. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the law which remanding the cases back to lower courts to evaluate whether or not the petitioners should be accommodated.
Cutter
v. Wilkinson – SUMMARY
Supreme Court of the United States
Amicus
Brief filed December 20, 2004
Churches are Entitled to Acquire and Use Land and Buildings for Ministry in Local Communities Without the Fetters of Discriminatory Zoning and Landmarking Regulations
The Federal Aviation Administration approved an expansion of a runway at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport which would require the removal of a cemetery belonging to a local UCC Church. This action sought to require the government meet the compelling state interest test of RLUIPA.
Village
of Bensenville v. Federal Aviation Administration – SUMMARY
U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
Amicus
Brief filed October 17, 2005
The Colorado town of Foxfield enacted an ordinance limiting the number of cars which could be parked off-street at a residence if there were complaints from three or more area residents. The ordinance was designed to prevent the conduct of religious services in the Rectory of a Roman Catholic Church (located on 2.5 acres of land) while a new church was being built nearby on a much larger tract of land. The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the ordinance violated both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and RLUIPA. The town appealed and the matter is pending in the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado.
Town
of Foxfield v. Archdiocese of Denver
Colorado Court of Appeals
Amicus Brief
filed July 5, 2005
Town
of Foxfield v. Archdiocese of Denver – SUMMARY
Supreme Court, State of Colorado
Amicus
Brief filed March 15, 2007
A Michigan congregation was denied permission under zoning ordinances to expand its church and school. They sued under RLUIPA and were given relief by the Federal District Court. The appeal of the township in pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
Living
Water Church of God (Okemos Christian Center) v. Meridian Charter Township
– SUMMARY
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit
Amicus
Brief filed April 20, 2006