Opinion ID: 3025336
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Should RLUIPA’s 2 (b)(1) be read as

Text: requiring strict scrutiny? The final issue of statutory construction before us is whether the Equal Terms provision should incorporate a required strict scrutiny analysis of a regulation that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with similarly situated nonreligious assemblies or institutions. We hold that RLUIPA’s Equal Terms provision operates on a strict liability standard; strict scrutiny does not come into play. Our analysis of whether strict scrutiny applies to the Equal Terms provision is informed by our discussion of whether a plaintiff under this provision must show a “substantial burden,” supra. The land-use provisions of RLUIPA are structured to create a clear divide between claims under section 2(a) (the Substantial Burdens section) and section 2(b) (the Discrimination and Exclusion section, of which the Equal Terms provision is a part). Since the Substantial Burden section includes a strict scrutiny provision and the Discrimination and Exclusion section does not, we conclude this “disparate exclusion” was part of the intent of Congress and not an oversight. See Russello, 464 U.S. at 23. In reaching this conclusion, we again must part ways with the Eleventh Circuit, which has held that “a violation of the Equal Terms provision is not necessarily fatal to the land use 35 regulation” but must “‘undergo strict scrutiny.’” Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana de Boca Raton, 450 F.3d 1295, 1308 (11th Cir. 2006) (quoting Midrash Sephardi, 366 F.3d at 1232). The Eleventh Circuit grounded this conclusion on the observation that, according to legislative history, “RLUIPA’s equal terms provision codifies the Smith-Lukumi line of [Free Exercise] precedent,” which imposes strict scrutiny “where a law fails to similarly regulate secular and religious conduct implicating the same government interests.” Midrash Sephardi, 366 F.3d at 1232. As discussed at length above, we give deference to Congress’s intent to codify the Free Exercise jurisprudence. In that regard, however, we find that Congress clearly signaled its intent that the operation of the Equal Terms provision not include strict scrutiny by the express language of sections 2a(1) and 2b(1) and by incorporating the element of Free Exercise case law, as can be seen in the language “equal terms,” that requires a determination that there is a secular comparator as to the objectives of the challenged regulation, see Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 536-37. Thus we decline to follow the Eleventh Circuit’s reasoning. We hold instead that, if a land-use regulation treats religious assemblies or institutions on less than equal terms with nonreligious assemblies or institutions that are no less harmful to the governmental objectives in enacting the regulation, that regulation – without more – fails under RLUIPA.14 14 With our definition of comparator as a secular assembly that has a similar impact as a religious assembly on the regulation’s aims, we are putting the teeth into section 2(b)(1) that it needs to follow Free Exercise case law. It is because the 36