Aug 6, 2003
"It takes a lot of chutzpah for Mayor Daley to say 'thank God' at the signing of a piece of legislation that represents an unprecedented assault on religious liberty," Becket Fund Vice President and General Counsel Anthony Picarello said today. The Mayor's remarks were made at a ceremony at which Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed the "O'Hare Modernization Act," legislation that sweeps away half a dozen laws that would otherwise protect two cemeteries that are located on the airport's southeastern edge.
The measure signed today takes away the protections of the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other state laws, which now apply to every religious cemetery in Illinois but St. Johannes and Resthaven. These organizations had challenged the O'Hare project in state court, citing the Illinois RFRA and the other statutes. Mayor Daley responded by pushing the legislation signed today, which repeals the very rights the two cemeteries were asserting in state court.
"The OMA is as illegal as it is distasteful," Picarello said. "It is the opposite of a 'generally applicable' law. It targets two religious cemeteries for special disfavor, stripping them of the rights enjoyed by every other religious cemetery in the state." The Becket Fund, along with local and aviation-law counsel, now represent the plaintiffs in a federal court challenge to the O'Hare expansion. Among the charges is that the plan violates the First Amendment and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA").
Robert J. Sell, spokesman for St. John's Church, which owns one of the cemeteries, said that "the OMA gives the City of Chicago unprecedented power to desecrate the graves of the dearly departed parishioners and clergy of St. John's Church in Bensenville, and those in nearby Resthaven Cemetery as well. It will also destroy the homes of many lower income families in the Church's community, and perhaps the community itself. Although the Mayor and the Governor may favor such a horrible act, we take offense at the Mayor's suggestion that God somehow had a hand in it. The struggle with respect to O'Hare Expansion is far from over. In the meantime, we strongly encourage the Mayor to reconsider his assumptions about God's view of the matter."
Court documents and other information about St. John's Church, et al. v. City of Chicago, et al. , can be found at www.becketfund.org.