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SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, September 4, 2002: A growing number of churches and other religious institutions are utilizing a two-year-old civil rights law to fight local government officials over zoning disputes. The churches claim the zoning laws are being used to violate their religious freedoms. The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) filed an appeal last week with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in an effort to reverse a decision by a lower federal court that prevented a California Christian college from moving its campus from San Jose to Morgan Hill. “If we prevail, we’ll be establishing new case law for churches and using RLUIPA — the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act — to set them apart from some of these onerous requirements that … create a substantial burden on their ability to grow as they feel called,” said Brad Dacus, president and chief counsel of the PJI. The PJI took up the case against the city of Morgan Hill after city officials told San Jose Christian College that it could not move its growing student body to the site of a defunct hospital it had purchased in 2000. Although a deed restriction barred the use of the facility as a hospital, the city council “voted to deny a zoning change from hospital use to educational use,” according to a website run by the college. The website also states the city council reached its decision despite a city-funded study that had concluded Morgan Hill would not need a hospital for another ten to 15 years. RLUIPA imparts important rights to all religious institutions in America, including Hindu temples, and should be thoroughly understood by temple committees.

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