Brief Defends Strong RLUIPA Decision on AppealApr 21, 2006 On April 20, 2006, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a brief on behalf of Okemos Christian Center before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Okemos, a church and Christian school located near Lansing, Michigan, has a mission of reaching out to the community and ministering to children and adults of all ages. Okemos first filed suit in 2004 after the township of Meridian denied a special use permit necessary to expand the church and build a home for the school. The Becket Fund argues in its brief that the Township’s actions are “directly responsible for extinguishing, endangering, and inhibiting numerous ministries, all of which are protected under RLUIPA’s definition of religious exercise.” Among other difficulties, the church was forced to close its longstanding daycare ministry due to lack of space in its current building. It also lacks a home for its religious school, which has been forced to move between multiple rented locations. The brief further contends: “The course of dealing between the Church and the Township makes the Township’s actions clear—it arbitrarily prohibited the Church’s expansion and construction of a religious school.” The Becket Fund argues that the church was subject to the whims of the Township, which does not permit houses of worship or religious schools to locate anywhere without a special use permit: “Such arbitrary decisionmaking, made by nonprofessionals operating without procedural safeguards, is exactly the evil RLUIPA was designed to prevent.” The Becket Fund successfully represented the plaintiffs in the first case resolved under RLUIPA, Haven Shores Community Church v. City of Grand Haven, and has since brought successful suits under RLUIPA in courts across the country, including in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Texas.
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