I am positively turning into a States’ rights believer! After all, when the Federal government is controlled by the far right across the board, well, the only sanctum is our dear little (mostly) blue State. (Or perhaps not, and not, and not, and, of course, NOT.)

Sadly, the Federal Left is often an accomplice to such anti-progressive causes.

Witness the mellifluously-named Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA, not that this acronym makes it any less of a mouthful). It passed unanimously and was signed into law by Clinton in 2000.

And on first read it sounds outstanding. (Indeed the “institutionalized persons” part of the law is quite good in guaranteeing religious freedoms for prisoners.) We learn how small groups of orthodox Jews were forbidden from reading scripture in a suburban home; how Muslims were barred by regulation from opening a mosque; and how a wee group of Christians in Rolling Hills, California weren’t allowed to practice their faith in storefronts.

In actuality, these examples are corner cases (or false). Much like the apocryphal small farmer burdened by the “death tax”, the true beneficiaries of this law are not the small and dispossessed. Anything but. This law is simply a way to further the rapacious expansion of big-business Protestantism into every nook and cranny of the country. As well, it is a “property rights” thrust, demanding that owners be allowed to do whatever they want with their property. The fact that the Federal Left voted for it is unclear — either a tit-for-tat exchange with the Right for the prisoner protection part, or, most likely, the desire not to vote “against” religion.

This abusive law effectively allows churches to override all local regulations and land-use restrictions to build where and when they want. Witness:

Have we arrived at a point in America where dirt is more important to local governments than religion? Welcome to Clackamas County, Oregon.

This bizarre site spells out how a group circumvented Oregon’s land-use laws to build their church on exclusive farm-use land. And here we learn how Mormons tried to build their mega-church in residential West Linn by using RLUIPA. Scroll through the list of cases, and one sees attack after attack on commonsense land-use and residential safeguards.

Residents of a Salem historic district squared off Monday against a church in the neighborhood that wants to build a 500-seat sanctuary on its property.

Just the threat of RLUIPA makes zoning boards quickly scurry to meet church demands. In Salem, a beautiful old neighbourhood must now play host to a “goliath church”, plopped squarely in its midst.

The church sued Salem in October 2002 under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, claiming the city had discriminated against it by denying its plans. A settlement meeting took place in February before Federal Magistrate Thomas M. Coffin, involving a majority of city councilors and church leaders but not the neighbors.

Oh, and that wee group in Rolling Hills?

Turns out they are not so little after all. They want to spend $14+ million on a mega-church with 500 car underground parking in a low-density residential neighborhood.

Of course they are using RLUIPA.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Environment, Faith and Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.