Bill would protect churches from local zoning prohibitions
Religion Today, July 21, 2000
They’re building a church? There goes the neighborhood.
That’s the attitude of an increasing number of people these days, especially in middle- and upper-class suburbs.
Congregations’ plans seem to be colliding with zoning laws and prickly neighbors, sometimes preventing a congregation from constructing a building or expanding its facility.
Neighbors have even complained about home Bible studies. They don’t like children playing or too many parked cars on their quiet street, they say.
A bill in Congress would protect churches from discrimination. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives July 13. It would prevent zoning laws from discriminating against churches and religious meetings such as home Bible studies unless there is a compelling government reason to do so.
The bill also would ensure that people in mental hospitals or prisons can exercise their religious faith unless it would undermine the security and order of the institutions.
The bill is a “pared down version” of the Religious Liberty Protection Act, which stalled in the Senate and has been abandoned, says Carl Esbeck, director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, part of the Virginia-based Christian Legal Society. He helped draft the land-use bill this spring.
Churches have been good neighbors and always were welcome in communities, but that “is no longer the case,” Esbeck told Religion Today. “There is a slowly rising environment of hostility toward religions – not just minority religions, but an increasing intolerance toward mainstream groups.”