process that allows the city to make sure that any impacts are addressed every single church that has applied for present planning approval has been approved by the city here the city refused to treat the association a quote church or religious facility to planning commissions attorney decided that the buddhist meditation center was quote not a religious facility the application was for mediation center of alabama or whatever this is not the baptist church or the physical church now this treatment by the city has had a profound effect on the ability of the association to worship in a zoning district that supposedly encourages  appeal is about the standards that need to be applied under rule lupo's provisions and the alabama religious freedom act and whether they actually provide religious organizations with any real protection from burdensome and discriminatory land use regulation the district court's decision here essentially reduces them to dead letters it helps death denying a religious organization approval to worship cannot substantially burden its religious exercise unless it can prove that there's no other location where it can do so this standard the standard that the courts use that the regulation must completely prevent the or individual from engaging in religiously mandated activity and requiring proof that requires them to locate at this particular site is practically impossible to meet in a discretionary permit contest except in the most extreme cases there will always be another property where the spirit that theoretically  by requiring that both the activity and the location must be religiously mandated it is directly contrary to lupus definition that religious exercise includes any exercise of religion whether or not compelled by or central to a system of religious beliefs but the district court's decision also renders the substantial burdens provision of relieve the redundant with its total exclusion provision and that's because if you can't use your property as violation here the evidence which was pretty much undisputed demonstrated that the city had granted approval under the same relevant circumstances to a nonreligious assembly an institution use relevant for the specific determination at issue in other words what is important for planning approval approval or denial and the city has admitted that the standards are exactly the same for a new or existing use the age of a a user whether it existed prior does not imply a fact the analysis for planning approval according to the city itself now is a distinction yes it's a distinction but it's not a relevant  no relevant distinction between that and me thing that i instead want to tear down my house and build for all our houses on the same lot i think is the criteria that one looks at the effect on the community character the effect on traffic the effect on access very well be different in those cases here with respect to the album fishing club they were not the significant major extension by the club would easily have had much greater impact on on these kinds of crazed syria dentist thirty person this quiet meditation center for buddhists when you look at the actual relevant criteria to shoot this is not the same as comparing putting up a deck versus putting up several other single family homes we are comparing apples and apples here and i ask you a quick question i know that you know because you split your time with the d o j it sure can ask you a question about the element that you in the strict scrutiny test the the legislature has said look we're going to we're not going to be held up by what is substantial or not is and everybody knows that that that term has been interpreted wildly varying fashions by different courts we're going to look at but the federal it's exercised how does the state have a good reason to burden religious exercise and has it used the least restrictive means of doing so that is to choice that override what is a clear textual statement here if there's nothing else on that point i would continue the district court also rejected the association nondiscrimination claim holding dadt a government essentially government is free to discriminate against any disfavor things but what's your best example or best evidence of discriminatory intent on the part of the decision makers well your honor this is like asking you who is my favorite child the dist the the decision made by the planning commission happened immediately after the statement that decision was based on a commercial type use the entire sequence of events led to the planning commission to no  planning commission and the city council and the implication there is is extremely significant because if it's not a calmer if it's a commercial use it's not allowed in this district even if it was some other type of planning approval use that is not a church or religious to sell it he it's use is not quote encouraged under the zoning code and the treatment of disuse not as a religious to syllabi had at the very least well and the reason for that is it meant study was open to people of all religions even the district court admitted that there are found that this was a religious organization and questioned why the city had such a tough time understanding that  it is true that it was raised and potentially even legitimately raised early on once the association provided cages and pages and testimony after testimony demonstrating that that this was in fact a buddhist religious center to city still stuck to its guns and still even at the late date of the city council meeting in january after the planning commission decision was still talking to the city council that it wasn't a religious facility so could have been raised legitimately at the very beginning of the process sure any time after that it was not legitimate and it was it was evidence of discriminatory out fairly broad goalposts of what would be a substantial burden on the one hand must be more than an inconvenience on religious exercise that's a point in which all circuits looking at this issue have agreed on in the other  hand something that requires someone to forgo religious precepts is certainly a substantial burden that's a sufficient condition for finding a substantial burden but not a necessary one the really the meat of the edit of the matter is in the middle which is where the court talked about a substantial burden being significant pressure coursing someone to conform his religious behavior in other words pressuring someone to change their religious behavior in a way that significantly i religious exercise and this this standard is in accord with the statutory language of luba as well as what other circuits have have found st substantial burden the statute uses the term noted a church a synagogue a mosque and meditation can always go somewhere they can move out of state they can they can move to a different jurisdiction not like someone in a prison who has no choice or hobby lobby under referral which had no choice but to to abide by the law on the other hand of the supreme court's recognizing sherbert diverter that pressuring somebody with denying them unemployment benefits because they wouldn't work on a saturday their sabbath is a substantial burden under the st amendment someone hypothetically could look for another another job there's always another job in the economy but the court said we're going to look at that at the situation and you know was this person substantially burden and i think that's what needs to be done in the l context and what midrash the forty's language contemplates an effect other circuits have done this they've looked at a number of factors st what's the actual need for the space the st thing you have to do is show that you need the space you need a church you need a new church you need a meditation a better location for your meditation center did you have a reasonable expectation that goes to whether it was self imposed rating warning council thank you was it self imposed or did you have some reasonable expectation you could use the property not not a guarantee there's no guarantees and zoning law but was it reasonable for you to to to seek this up word you faced elaine uncertainty and expense by being forced to to move or seek other property and included with it within this delay concept is arbitrary and capricious is it was the government acting arbitrary would your future attempts to locate in similar properties  so in light of all this we think the that perfectly consistent with mid russia farty is the concept that you don't need to completely be that required to forgo your religious beliefs by a denial but if there's substantial pressure that requires you to forgo your religious conduct and that is conduct that is substantially compromised that isn't up to be a of asking you to reorder your argument would you mind for my benefit beginning with the the argument that you just heard from the department of justice that the court sort of misunderstood the district court misunderstood our mid rash case construing a substantial burden that substantial burden doesn't necessarily mean doesn't necessarily entail complete prevention or required foregoing that it requested to what we just heard from d o j counsel the district court here correctly followed mid rash and by following mid rash follow the free exercise cases and supreme court jurist and jur e on which mid rash relied and i don't believe that the characterization of the district court's opinion can fairly be boiled down to equating a substantial burden only with a complete prohibition on religious exercise in fact the trial court order quoted liberally from the mid rash decision and indicated correctly that a substantial burden requires something more than an incidental effect on religious exercise that it must place more than an inconvenience on the logistics or size that is a significant pressure which directly coerces the religious side here and to conform his or her behavior and that it can result from pressure that tends to force it here  and to forgo religious precepts from pressure that mandates religious conduct those principles for directly from the supreme court's free exercise cases such as we've cited in our brief the link case and the and the shorter case which largely dealt with is there pressure brought by government law regulation that is requiring a religious and here aunt to give up certain tenets of their faith and that is the approach that the district court used here relative to the claimed burdens that appellant's mentioned here such as noise such as safety things of that nature what the analysis is not not is simply a weighing of whether there is an old facility that has certain features and does the proposed new facility have better features to the analysis is what is the substantial  citing mid rash and individuals exercise of religion is substantially burden if a regulation completely prevents the individual from engaging in religiously mandated activity or if the regulation requires participation in an activity prohibited by forego their religious beliefs so it seems to me that the district court read mid what midrash was saying is that those sorts of extreme deprivations are sufficient conditions but not necessary conditions to a substantial burden in the district court here unless you meet that standard that is unless you meet the necessary condition there is no violation well as i we the district court's opinion which correctly was fact intensive and the substantial burden issue as a matter of law certainly there are certain examples that the district court sided that would meet the substantial burden standard certainly a complete prohibition would meet the substantial burden standard however what it does take short of complete prohibition and order to meet substantial burden which is what we have here is not complete probation what we do require by mid rash give that substantial burden must cause that religious adherents to forego certain precepts for certain beliefs and that's consistent with free exercise jurisprudence and as i if it was a local government like the city mo beale could never deny approval for a new facility no matter how large it was no matter where it was if the applicant merely argued that the new facility was somehow better than the old facility and what we have again i can get started in justice to be saying that there's a more nuanced determination it's not just you know you get to say we really want this and that's good enough that there are you know there are factors that the other circuits have developed on a sort of a case by case basis that would inform that consideration reasonable expectation you know sort of degree of interference things like that and what loop is that the word substantially is transformed into the word completely totally dispositively something like that and that's the that the text is substantial burden st of all it some sure the port is where substantial burden is is a term of art and free exercise jurisprudence and when congress enacts a statute such as on a loop that includes the term substantial burden and does not define differently than the courts have defined it the definition that is found in the supreme court's precedent is presumed to be the meaning of that particular provision what these other circuits done is they have strayed from that free exercise jurisprudence that i mentioned and they have taken the emphasis off of what is the burden on the religious and here in the applicant and they have moved the analysis to other factors such as what was the governmental process or the administrative process did the plaintiff reasonably expect to build a church and things of that nature the problem with that approach is multifold st of all simply using the term burd including in the midwest elevating religious uses above non religious uses and potentially infringing upon the establishment clause certified to the alabama supreme court if necessary our position is that the alabama federal district court has dealt with this particular issue especially given the lack of a definition in the original question was going to be let's look back to the federal statute what if we agree with the talent and the department of justice that the district court appl under the alternative formulations that these other circuits have used and not saying agree with them but even if they were used the city still prevails on this appeal and let me show you some of the reasons discussion of issues such as traffic compatibility with the existing neighborhood about the concerns of converting a longtime single family residential property and adding approximately  the new buildings to that property to be used for weeknight classes weekend retreats and other activities approximately two hundred dollars days and nights out of the year under the planning approval criteria that is set for in the zoning ordinance the planning commission was purely within its discretion as was the city council hearing those concerns and determining that this use at this location was not appropriate the planning approval criteria is location and plan specific and what the city passed on here was the site plan that the pla put before for the new buildings that degree of use within a long time presidential neighborhood is a very unique application to city and again contrary to appellant statement th approval and why they voted to deny approval indicating agreement with the the terms of the letter of decision that was issued by the city recently as to the similarly situated rebuttal stores or you may be on mute i believe i might need it now responding to one of the points that counsel just made that there have been other denials there is no evidence in the record that establishes that there have been any other of the standard it is to tell and i believe that the counsel only discussed the fact that he believes we would fail strict scrutiny review and not that there would not be a substantial burden on religious exercise and strict scrutiny review is a is a if a very high standard of review and one that cannot be met here by the city we have city staff admitting efile and depositions that there really is no lose thirty people on that property in the forest there there's no way that the city could establish that it needs strict scrutiny i want also to point out to important aspects of both relief and are that re construction provision says that its terms should be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of this chapter in the constitution similarly our says that it shall be liberally construed to effectuate its remedial and determined purposes the holdings in both midrash so far and the earlier gross versus the city of miami beach cases are don't control here because do not provide city officials rationally process of denying churches or religious institutions that are to say that it does not allow the city thank you