Opinion ID: 218714
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Equal Terms Clause

Text: The Equal Terms Clause of the RLUIPA (the Clause) states: No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution. [4] When we focus on the text of the Clause, we read it as prohibiting the government from imposing, i.e., enacting, a facially discriminatory ordinance or implementing, i.e., enforcing a facially neutral ordinance in a discriminatory manner. Here, issue is not taken with the City's implementation of the zoning ordinance as to the Church; rather, the Church makes a facial challenge to the ordinance's treating churches less favorably than other nonretail, nonreligious institutions. In prohibiting the government from treating a religious institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution,  the Clause by its nature requires that the religious institution in question be compared to a nonreligious counterpart, or comparator. Since the enactment of the RLUIPA, four circuits have constructed different tests for applying the Clause, each with varying determinations of which nonreligious assemblies and institutions are proper comparators to the religious assembly or institution that brings the claim. The Eleventh Circuit determines comparators based on whether the challenged ordinance is facially neutral or facially discriminatory. [5] If the ordinance is facially discriminatory, any nonreligious assembly or institutionbroadly defined as a company of persons collected together in one place or an establishmentcan be a comparator. [6] Under that reading, virtually every facially discriminatory ordinance violates the Equal Terms Clause. The Eleventh Circuit further recognizes, however, that a violation of the clause is not necessarily fatal to the land use regulation. [7] It does this by extra-statutorily engrafting strict scrutiny review onto its test. [8] As for ordinances that are facially neutral, however, the Eleventh Circuit classifies claims under the Clause as either (1) those that challenge ordinances of general applicability but that nevertheless target[] religion through a `religious gerrymander' [9] or (2) those that challenge discriminatory application. [10] When alleging religious gerrymander, a religious plaintiff must show that the challenged zoning regulation separates permissible from impermissible assemblies or institutions in a way that burdens almost only religious uses [11] thus assessing the treatment of the religious plaintiff relative to all other nonreligious occupants. When alleging discriminatory application, however, a religious plaintiff must show that a similarly situated nonreligious comparator received differential treatment under the challenged regulation. [12] The Third and Seventh Circuits, in contrast, do not distinguish claims based on the nature of the zoning ordinance but apply the same test when addressing all claims under the Clause. The Third Circuit stated that a regulation will violate the Equal Terms provision only if it treats religious assemblies or institutions less well than secular assemblies or institutions that are similarly situated as to the regulatory purpose.  [13] The Seventh Circuit alternatively has announced a more objective test, viz., that a zoning ordinance violates the Clause if it treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution that is similarly situated as to accepted zoning criteria.  [14] Most recently, the Second Circuit addressed a claim under the Clause raised by a church that was prohibited from operating catering services when a hotel in the same zone was not. [15] Although the court attempted to avoid choosing among the other three circuits' tests, it concluded that the hotel was a valid comparator to the church because the Church's and the hotels' catering activities [are] similarly situated with regard to their legality under [the City's] law. [16] In other words, the Second Circuit first determined whether the two parties' activities should both be legal under the zoning ordinance at issue and then looked to whether the city treated the similarly legal religious and nonreligious institutions on equal terms. The court ultimately concluded that the city's imposition of the ordinance violated the Clause because the formal differences the City asserts cannot protect its course of conduct and [] the institutions are similarly situated for all functional intents and purposes relevant here. [17] Even if unintentionally, the Second Circuit thus has created a fourth testsomewhat combining the Third and Seventh Circuits' tests which identifies a comparator that is similarly situated for all functional intents and purposes of the regulation. In the instant case, the Church urged the district court to apply the Third Circuit's test. The magistrate judge did soconsidering the zoning ordinance's regulatory purpose of creat[ing] a retail corridor along Bandera Roadand recommended dismissing the Church's claim under the Clause because [t]he Church ha[d] not identified a non-religious assembly which is treated more favorably than a religious assembly in creating a retail corridor. On appeal, the Church asserts that the district court should have applied the Eleventh Circuit's test to what the Church claims is a facially discriminatory zoning ordinance. The Church insists that the district court erred in refusing to invalidate the City's ordinance for differentiating between religious and nonreligious assemblies and for the ordinance's failure to pass strict scrutiny review. We turn first to the City's zoning ordinance. In articulating the reasoning behind and criteria to be used for creating the retail corridor on Bandera Road, the text of the ordinance does not mention religion. The City's real problem lies in the ordinance's Permitted Use Table, [18] which lists many types of buildings by use and then specifies the zone or zones in which each is or is not permitted. Specifically, the use table notes that Churches are not allowed in B-2 zones at all, but that many nonreligious, nonretail buildings, e.g., Club or Lodge ( private ), are allowed to request SUPs and, if granted, to occupy a B-2 zone. Try as we may, we cannot reconcile the ordinance's facial treatment of a church differently than a private club in light of the way that B-2 zones are defined. In assessing the City's ordinance under the Clause, we conclude that the Clause does require the Church to show more than simply that its religious use is forbidden and some other nonreligious use is permitted. The less than equal terms must be measured by the ordinance itself and the criteria by which it treats institutions differently. When we analyze the City's ordinance within this framework, we are convinced that it is invalid because it prohibits the Church from even applying for a SUP when, e.g., a nonreligious private club may apply for a SUP despite the obvious conclusion that the Church and a private club must be treated the same, i.e., on equal terms by the ordinance, given the similar non-B-2 nature of each. [19] At bottom, the ordinance treats the Church on terms that are less than equal to the terms on which it treats similarly situated nonreligious institutions. We conclude therefore that the imposition of the City's ordinance violates the RLUIPA's Equal Terms Clause. [20]