Permit to Pray? Town Clamps Down on Jews’ Worship — SCOTUS to Hear Case

There shall be no law “prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” says our First Amendment about religious freedom. State constitutions, including Ohio’s, also have strong protections for the exercise of faith. Yet you wouldn’t know it, critics may say, judging from the behavior of University Heights, Ohio. Because according to that municipality’s city fathers, poker night at your home would be okay, as one commentator puts it. But a Jewish prayer group at that home on the same night?

Well, that’s a different story.

It’s not a new story, though. In fact, in our country, founded in part on religious freedom, localities have long tried to suppress that freedom. The most notorious example, of course, was the forcible closure of churches during Covid — while liquor stores could remain open.

Reporting on the current suppression, Lathan Watts, vice president of public affairs for Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote Thursday:

The biblical account of Daniel in the lions’ den is so well known that even those with differing religious beliefs or none are likely familiar with it. Daniel, a devout Jew exiled in Babylon, was praying in his home, which violated King Darius’s decree. As punishment, he was cast into a den of lions, but God saved him by miraculously closing the lions’ mouths.

Thousands of years later, another Daniel finds himself at odds with his government over prayer. The stakes are not life-threatening for this Daniel, but for religious freedom in America, they are dire.

Daniel Grand is a devout Orthodox Jew who has lived in University Heights, Ohio, a small suburb east of Cleveland, since 2019. He bought his home to raise his family and live out his faith. For Daniel, those things are inseparable.

Orthodox Jewish practice calls for prayer in a group of at least ten men three times every weekday and four times on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. On those holy days, driving is prohibited, which means Daniel must either live within walking distance of a synagogue or gather with at least ten Jewish men close to home. A minyan — a traditional Jewish prayer quorum — is not a convenience for Daniel. It is a religious duty.

He reached out to about a dozen friends [via email] near his neighborhood, inviting them to walk to his house the following Sabbath and pray together as a minyan. No announcements. No signage. No noise. Just a quiet gathering of men who share their faith and live close enough to walk to each other’s homes.

An Atheistic Karen?

A neighbor saw that email, however, and informed the mayor, asking him to “put a stop to this.” And, well, if you think government only ever gets things done at a glacial pace, University Heights pols proved that wrong. As Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing Grand, reported at its website May 28:

Before any prayer meeting took place, the city’s law director issued a cease-and-desist order directing Daniel to stop using his home as a “place of religious assembly.” The order did not define how many visitors would make Daniel’s home a place of religious assembly. It simply told Daniel to stop.

Daniel did not ignore the order. At first, he applied for a special-use permit — the process the city pointed him toward. But the permit process was designed for actual churches, temples, and large institutional religious uses, not for a spare room in a private home used for prayer. Worse, obtaining the permit would have forbidden Daniel and his family from “sleeping or residential use.” In other words, the only way to legally host a prayer group at his home was to stop living there.

This “Go fight city hall” phenomenon bedevils millions, too. In fact, just yesterday I reported on a writer whose city played games with her over an increased property-tax levy. No magician could use misdirection and tie you up with red tape better than money- or malice-motivated politicians can. The ADF continued:

When Daniel attended the hearing for his permit, city officials switched the format of the hearing without warning, locking the official record and preventing Daniel from adding evidence or updating his application. … And since the official record was locked, Daniel was prevented from presenting evidence and testimony in his favor. Facing a process that appeared rigged, Daniel withdrew his application — one he should never have had to submit in the first place.

Just as strikingly, officials also “ordered police to monitor his home and encouraged neighbors to file complaints about visitors,” relates the ADF. This behavior has led to accusations of harassment.

More bad news is that lower federal courts dismissed Grand’s lawsuit, saying he didn’t complete the “permit process.” The good news is that the Supreme Court agreed on June 30 to hear his case.

Religion Under Assault

Of course, it’s understandable that localities have zoning regulations governing declared or de facto religious institutions. You wouldn’t, after all, want gatherings of hundreds of people, along with their vehicles (and perhaps “calls to prayer”), next door on a regular basis. But assuming the ADF’s reporting is accurate, that’s not the issue in Grand’s case. What is the issue, apparently, is something G.K. Chesterton lamented.

“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion,” he wrote. “In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.”

Oh, and that was in 1936.

And since then, as I mentioned, we’ve repeatedly witnessed manifestations of this phenomenon. Just consider Anchor Stone Christian Church in Santa Ana, California. In 2022, the Taiwanese-American congregation purchased property in a “professional” zoning district after initial city indications of feasibility. The government, however, later required a costly, discretionary conditional use permit for the church. Meanwhile, it allowed comparable secular assemblies (such as museums, science centers, and art galleries) by right without such a process. The denial left the property vacant for years and caused the church significant financial losses (reportedly more than $500,000). A settlement was reached last August — the city compensated the church and capitulated to reality.

The same kind of double standard was allegedly applied to one Christ Church in Troy, Idaho, in 2023. The Department of Justice is currently suing on the church’s behalf.

More egregious still, states and localities were for years persecuting Christian businessmen — bakers, photographers, etc. — who wouldn’t be party to faux (same-sex) weddings.

And why is this happening? Why are today’s anti-theists using regulations and red tape so maliciously against religious believers? The reason is simple: They don’t yet have the power to throw those they despise to the lions.