Becket Fund defends Constitutionality of federal land use law

Apr 20, 2001

In what may become the ultimate constitutional test case for the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ("RLUIPA"), The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has filed a detailed defense of the new law (PDF format, 105K) with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The Becket Fund represents the plaintiff in Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron v. City of Fairlawn. Attorneys for the city moved to dismiss the lawsuit, alleging in part that RLUIPA is unconstitutional.

In a brief filed with the court on April 19, The Becket Fund argues that the provisions of the new law (signed by President Clinton on September 22, 2000) "were carefully designed to ensure their constitutionality under the standards set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in City of Boerne v. Flores and United States v. Lopez." In fact, the brief notes that the RLUIPA provisions challenged by the attorneys for Fairlawn "essentially restate current religious freedom jurisprudence . . . as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The Becket Fund brief sharply disputes the contention by the city that RLUIPA is "virtually identical" to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") which was struck down by the Supreme Court in City of Boerne v. Flores. "RLUIPA differs profoundly from RFRA for all purposes relevant to the analysis in Flores, as the result of a painstaking effort by legislators and legal scholars to fully comply with the requirements of that decision," the brief states.

Fairlawn has imposed a "substantial burden" on the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron by prohibiting it from building a proposed 5,400 square-foot Fellowship Hall, and even from remodeling the existing church building to allow such improvements as air conditioning, the brief states. But the city has "not identified a single governmental interest, much less a compelling one, that could justify burdening the Church's religious exercise in this way. It is hard to imagine an interest that warrants preventing the Church from continuing the religious mission it has carried out since 1839, in its present location for four decades."

The Fairlawn zoning ordinance does not permit new churches or church expansions anywhere in the city, even though non-religious assembly uses are routinely permitted. "The Zoning Code is therefore not neutral, and is subject to strict scrutiny" by the courts, the brief states.

Relevant Cases

• Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron v. City of Fairlawn