US Supreme Court to Review Kentucky Zoning Dispute Over Church Shrine
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a zoning dispute involving a Catholic church in Kentucky that was refused permission to construct a religious shrine on a neighbouring plot. The justices said on Thursday they would take up the case brought by the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist, a congregation located in the Cincinnati suburbs.
The church had sought a permit to build a large grotto dedicated to the Virgin Mary on an adjacent lot, but was turned down. The central question before the court is whether that denial runs afoul of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that, among other things, shields religious groups from zoning regulations that place a "substantial burden" on their religious practice.
The Park Hills zoning board had initially given the church the go-ahead to proceed with its plans, even though a local ordinance limits certain land uses to arterial streets. Neighbours who had expressed fears that the 39-foot grotto would intensify traffic congestion filed a lawsuit, contending that the conditional use permit breached both state and federal law.
A state judge ruled in favour of the church, but the Kentucky Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The Kentucky Supreme Court upheld the appellate ruling, finding that the ordinance did not substantially interfere with the church's rights because it could instead build a smaller shrine on land it already owns. The state's highest court also observed that the church had known about the prohibition before applying for the permit.
In its petition to the US Supreme Court, the church argued that the Kentucky courts misunderstood the RLUIPA statute and asked the justices to clarify the reach of its protections. "The decision below exacerbates the deep fractures on what qualifies as a 'substantial burden' among federal and state appellate courts—a well-recognized and longstanding conflict of authority," lawyers for the church wrote. "Given RLUIPA's critical role in preserving religious liberty, this Court should grant review to clarify its application in the land-use context."
Attorneys for the neighbours had contended that the church's petition was not the appropriate means to bring the issue before the Supreme Court. The case now joins a number of other religious liberty matters on the Supreme Court's docket for this term, with rulings anticipated by the summer of next year.
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