Opinion ID: 3003707
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Church is Unlikely to Succeed on the Merits

Text: The first part of our analysis requires us to address the strength of the Church’s suit. The Church argues that the ordinance violates the Equal Terms provision of RLUIPA, which 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 non-religious assembly or institution.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(1). We review de novo the district court’s determination that the Church is likely to succeed on the merits of its RLUIPA claim. See Christian Legal Soc’y, 453 F.3d at 859. The Church claims that the Village’s ordinance, even as amended, violates the Equal Terms provision because it allows non-religious assemblies to locate within the B-2 district. Relying on Midrash Sephardi, Inc. v. Town of Surfside, 366 F.3d 1214, 1230 (11th Cir. 2004), the Church interprets the term “assembly” to include gymnasiums, health clubs, salons, day care centers, and hotels, all of which are permitted uses under the Village’s ordinance. The Church argues that, because the ordinance allows these assemblies but excludes the Church’s proposed use, the ordinance treats religious assemblies on less than equal terms with non-religious ones, thus violating RLUIPA. The Village, on the other hand, argues that it cured any potential RLUIPA concerns after its amendment 8 No. 08-2819 removed “meeting halls” and other non-commercial institutions from the list of permissible uses. According to the Village, hotels, commercial gyms, health clubs, and the other uses raised by the Church cannot be considered assemblies, even under Midrash’s definition. The Village also directs our attention to the Third Circuit’s approach in Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism, Inc. v. City of Long Branch, which requires a plaintiff to identify a better-treated non-religious institution that is similarly situated in regards to the regulatory purposes of the landuse regulation. 510 F.3d 253 (3d Cir. 2007). This approach, the Village argues, is even more favorable to its position although it still believes it will prevail under either standard. We have not had the opportunity to discuss at length the contours of the Equal Terms provision, but we benefit from the Third and Eleventh Circuits’ No. 08-2819 9 thoughtful discussion on the issue. 4 We analyze their holdings accordingly. In Midrash, the Eleventh Circuit held that a town’s ordinance that prevented a synagogue from relocating in the business district violated RLUIPA’s Equal Terms provision. The district in question was created to “provide for retail, shopping and personal service needs of the town’s residents and tourists,” but also permitted theaters, restaurants, private clubs, and lodge halls within its boundaries. Id. at 1220. Using the “ordinary or natural meaning” of “assembly,” as defined by Webster’s and Black’s Law Dictionary, the court found that private clubs and lodges were also assemblies similarly situated to churches and synagogues. Id. at 1230-31. Therefore, to 4 In Vision Church v. Village of Long Grove, we quoted Konikov v. Orange County, 410 F.3d 1317, 1324 (11th Cir. 2005), which stated that there were three kinds of Equal Terms statutory violations, the first one being “a statute that facially differentiates between religious and non-religious assemblies or institutions . . . .” 468 F.3d 975, 1003 (7th Cir. 2006). We also noted that we had not yet explored fully the contours of the Equal Terms provision, id., and the case did not provide any further opportunity to do so. The plaintiff in Vision Church only challenged the special use permit requirement in the ordinance, and we held that the provision did not differentiate between religious and non-religious institutions; nor was there any other evidence of discriminatory intent. See id. We did not determine whether, for purposes of comparison under the Equal Terms provision, the plaintiff must show that it is similarly situated to other non-religious assemblies in relation to local government objectives. 10 No. 08-2819 exclude synagogues but permit private clubs was to treat a religious assembly on less than equal terms with a non-religious one. Id. at 1231. Although the court found that the ordinance violated RLUIPA, its inquiry did not stop there. The court applied strict scrutiny, determining whether the ordinance was narrowly tailored to advance a compelling interest. Id. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993), it determined that laws which were not neutral or generally applicable were subject to strict scrutiny. Id. at 1232. It then extended this principle to RLUIPA cases, stating: RLUIPA’s equal terms provision codifies the SmithLukumi line of precedent. . . . A zoning law is not neutral or generally applicable if it treats similarly situated secular and religious assemblies differently because such unequal treatment indicates the ordinance improperly targets the religious character of an assembly. Thus a violation of § (b)’s equal treatment provision, consistent with the analysis employed in Lukumi, must undergo strict scrutiny. Id. The Third Circuit, on the other hand, adopted a slightly different approach. A church argued that a plaintiff alleging a violation of the Equal Terms provision need only show that the city’s regulation treats a non-religious assembly better than a religious assembly without regard to the objectives of the regulation. Lighthouse, 510 F.3d at 264. The court disagreed. It reasoned that Congress inNo. 08-2819 11 tended to codify the existing free exercise clause jurisprudence, all of which considered regulations presumptively valid if they were neutral and of general applicability. Id. In other words, facial differentiation between religious and non-religious institutions alone was insufficient to demonstrate that the ordinance was non-neutral. Only when the institutions had the same effect on the city’s objectives was the regulation discriminatory. The court also declined to incorporate strict scrutiny into the Equal Terms provision. Section (a)(1) of RLUIPA (the “Substantial Burden” provision) includes express language applying strict scrutiny to land regulations that impose a substantial burden on a person’s religious exercise. The absence of such language in the Equal Terms provision, according to the court, demonstrated Congress’s intent not to include it. Id. at 269. As a result, the Third Circuit held that “if a land-use regulation treats religious assemblies or institutions on less than equal terms with non-religious assemblies or institutions that are no less harmful to the governmental objectives in enacting the regulation, that regulation—without more—fails under RLUIPA.” Id. at 269. Applying this interpretation, the court struck down the city’s ordinance. It found that the ordinance violated RLUIPA because nothing in the record explained how the excluded religious assemblies harmed the city’s objectives more so than the included non-religious assemblies. Id. at 272. The difference between both approaches likely compels a different result here. The Third Circuit’s interpretation makes it difficult for the Church’s claim to survive. The non-religious “assemblies” the Church identified (com12 No. 08-2819 mercial gymnasiums, health clubs, salons, day care centers, and hotels), assuming they are indeed assemblies, are all commercial entities that contribute to the business district in ways a church cannot. Midrash’s interpretation of the Equal Terms provision, adopted by the district court, significantly improves the Church’s likelihood of success. It would only need to demonstrate that one of the permitted uses was an “assembly” to establish a RLUIPA violation, and, thus, require us to apply strict scrutiny. It is debatable whether a day care center, a hotel, or a gymnasium can be considered an assembly, but the Church would have at least some non-negligible chance to win on the merits. As a result, we must first determine whether the district court applied the correct standard in finding that the Church’s RLUIPA claim had a slight likelihood of success. The important question here is the proper interpretation of “less than equal.” The statute does not state explicitly whether this language means religious and non-religious institutions must always be treated identically in land-use regulations, or whether the regulations can differentiate between them for legitimate, non-religious reasons. The Third and Eleventh Circuits are in agreement, and the legislative history suggests that RLUIPA codified in September 2000 the existing Free Exercise clause jurisprudence. Lighthouse, 510 F.3d at 264 (citing 146 Cong. Rec. S7774, 7776 (July 27, 2007) (Senate Sponsor’s statement) (“Sections 2(b)(1) and (2) . . . enforce the Free Exercise Clause rule against laws that burden religion and are not neutral and generally applicable.”)); Midrash, 366 F.3d at 1232. We find the Third Circuit’s reasoning No. 08-2819 13 persuasive because we believe it is more consistent with Congress’s intent and with the case law interpreting the Free Exercise clause. The Supreme Court has clearly stated that the right of free exercise of religion does not require us to invalidate neutral laws of general applicability. Employment Div., Dept. of Human Res. of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990). Laws that depart from this principle of neutrality are subject to strict scrutiny. Id. There are two ways in which a law can discriminate against religious conduct. The first is facially. In Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, for instance, the Supreme Court stated that “[a] law lacks facial neutrality if it refers to a religious practice without a secular meaning discernible from the language or context.” 508 U.S. 520, 533 (1993) (emphasis added). In that case, the challenged ordinances prohibited the “sacrifice” of animals within the city limits, but exempted “slaughtering” (defined as “the killing of animals for food”) by “ ‘licensed establishment[s]’ of animals ‘specifically raised for food purposes.’ ” Id. at 536. The plaintiff argued that the words “sacrifice” and “ritual” had strong religious connotations and that the use of those terms in the ordinances demonstrated a lack of facial neutrality. Id. at 533-34. The Court disagreed, holding that “sacrifice” and “ritual” had secular meanings, and that the ordinance defined them without reference to religious practices. Id. at 534. An ordinance also lacks neutrality if its object is to suppress religious practice. Id. at 534. The Court in Lukumi found persuasive the fact that the Santeria church’s 14 No. 08-2819 rituals were “almost the only conduct subject to [the ordinances],” the stated government interests could have been addressed with narrower regulations, and that statements from city officials indicated hostility towards the religion. Id. at 535, 539. This led the Court to conclude that the object of the ordinances was to prohibit the church’s religious practice. Since this demonstrated a lack of neutrality, the Court applied strict scrutiny before finding that the law violated the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. Id. at 546-47. We assume that Congress, consistent with the Free Exercise cases, did not intend to invalidate neutral laws of general applicability. And the Supreme Court explained in Lukumi, that a law is non-neutral if it “refers to a religious practice without a secular meaning discernible from the language or context” or if its object was to suppress religious practice. Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 533-34 (emphasis added). So the question is whether an ordinance that permits some non-religious assemblies but excludes religious assemblies can be considered, without more, discriminatory or non-neutral. We agree with the Third Circuit in finding that it cannot. The Eleventh Circuit’s approach would find a zoning ordinance non-neutral and not of general applicability (and thus apply strict scrutiny), any time a church is precluded from locating in an area that permits nonreligious assemblies. Adopting the Eleventh Circuit’s definition of “assembly”—“a company of persons collected together in one place [usually] and usually for some common purpose (as deliberation and legislation, worship, No. 08-2819 15 or social entertainment),” Midrash, 366 F.3d at 1230— would significantly expand the scope of local ordinances implicated under RLUIPA. There is no shortage of hypotheticals demonstrating the dangers of such an expansive reading of the Equal Terms provision. See, e.g., Lighthouse, 510 F.3d at 268 (“[I]f a town allows a local, tenmember book club to meet in the senior center . . . , it must permit a religious assembly with rituals involving the sacrificial killings of animals or the participation of wild bears [ ] to locate in the same neighborhood . . . .”); Centro Familiar Cristiano Buenas Nuevas v. City of Yuma, 615 F. Supp. 2d 980, 994 (D. Ariz. 2009) (a zoning ordinance that permits only one assembly but excludes all others will violate RLUIPA unless it also permits all types of religious assemblies). Indeed, the Eleventh Circuit recognized that the “mention of church or synagogue,” or, in this case, its omission from a list of permissible uses, “does not destroy a zoning code’s neutrality.” Midrash, 366 F.3d at 1232-33 (citing Walz v. Tax Comm’n of New York City, 397 U.S. 664 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring)). That is because a law that refers to a religious practice but has a discernible secular meaning is not facially discriminatory as we understand it in the Free Exercise context. Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 533-34. The same is true for zoning ordinances. Land use regulations generally include or exclude a number of entities. And the fact that a church is one of them does not render the law facially discriminatory. See Civil Liberties for Urban Believers v. City of Chi., 342 F.3d 752, 763 (7th Cir. 2003) (finding an ordinance facially neutral when the ordinance did not include a church as a permitted use, but instead designated it a 16 No. 08-2819 special use requiring approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals). Furthermore, that a zoning ordinance permits a non-religious assembly but excludes a religious assembly does not indicate that its object was to target religious practice. There are a number of legitimate secular reasons for permitting some assemblies while excluding others, some of which are even stated in the ordinance themselves. The Eleventh Circuit’s approach makes no inquiry into any of them before determining whether an ordinance violates RLUIPA. It presumes an illicit motive, and, as a result, it potentially subjects to strict scrutiny laws that may be considered neutral and generally applicable under our Free Exercise jurisprudence. Comparing the effect of the included and excluded assemblies on the local government’s stated goals before finding a RLUIPA violation presents a more workable standard. It allows the court to determine whether the ordinance targets religious assemblies for non-secular reasons or whether it is indeed neutral and generally applicable. We believe this interpretation, adopted by the Third Circuit, is more consistent with congressional intent, which was to codify the Free Exercise jurisprudence. Merely pointing to any differential treatment between both groups is not enough. That would only lead us to the conclusion that religious assemblies are automatically entitled to all benefits extended to the non-religious; we do not believe this is what the Supreme Court or Congress intended. Cf. Grace United Methodist Church v. City of Cheyenne, 451 F.3d 643, 651 (10th Cir. 2006) (“[W]e have already refused to interpret Smith as standing for the No. 08-2819 17 proposition that a secular exemption automatically creates a claim for a religious exemption.”). The impact of the broad interpretation the Church urges us to adopt cannot be alleviated by applying strict scrutiny to RLUIPA violations. Although the Substantial Burden provision makes reference to strict scrutiny, the Equal Terms provision does not. For our purposes, Congress’s silence is instructive. See Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983) (“[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.”). The strict scrutiny requirement is more than just a legal standard. If used as the Church suggests, it has the potential to significantly impede the ability of local governments to pass legislation that place incidental burdens on any religious practice. To the Supreme Court in Smith, requiring the government to demonstrate a compelling interest in all Free Exercise cases produced a “private right to ignore generally applicable laws,” a “constitutional anomaly” which the Court found unacceptable. 494 U.S. at 886. If Congress meant to apply strict scrutiny to violations of the Equal Terms provision as well, it would have said so in the statute. Therefore, we also agree with the Third Circuit in finding that a violation of section (b), by itself, is sufficient to invalidate a land use regulation. Applying this framework to the facts of this case, we see little similarity between the Church and the permitted or special uses in the B-2 district. The Church argues that it was unlawfully excluded from the district because the 18 No. 08-2819 Village still allowed other non-religious uses such as commercial gymnasiums, health clubs, salons, day care centers, and hotels. Assuming some of the permitted uses may be considered assemblies, their effect on the Village’s goals are sufficiently distinguishable to remove any suspicion of religious gerrymandering. The Village sought to create a tax revenue-generating commercial district centered near the mass transit area. The permitted entities are all commercial in nature, while churches, meeting halls, community centers, and schools (which are all uses excluded from the ordinance after the amendment) are not. A locality seeking to create a commercial area should be able to exclude non-commercial uses that do not contribute to its goal without violating RLUIPA. As a result, the Church’s likelihood of success on the merits is slight at best.