This little-known federal law is crucial for religious freedom

Unless they’ve been living under a rock since the landmark 2014 Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Decision, most people should be familiar with the 1993 Restoration of Religious Freedom Act. Yet very few people are aware of a younger law that works just as hard on the religious freedom front for almost none of the credit.

Earlier this week, CR reported on a story about a Louisiana Baptist Church facing discrimination from its municipal government over a noise violation. While the plaintiffs in the case are invoking a state-level Preservation of Religious Freedom Act (similar to a state-level RFRA), they are also bringing in the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA.

What is RLUIPA?

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc was signed into law in 2000 and states that no government federal, state or local

This means that RLUIPA has two major objectives. First, it ensures that bodies such as zoning boards and land use committees have to respect the religious liberty of churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and other institutions. Second, it says that officials at government institutions such as correctional facilities and psychiatric hospitals must do the same for prisoners and patients under their care.

RLUIPA is invoked “usually in the context of zoning where a particular religious entity was told, ‘You can’t be in this area of town or we’re not going to allow you to build a church, or a temple, or any other religious facility in this town because we don’t allow them,” explains Kevin Theriot, Esq., Vice President at Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Life.

Upon signing the bill, President Bill Clinton said RLUIPA would

A memorandum from the American Center for Law and Justice explains the land use provisions this way:

The Department of Justice Website explains the provisions regarding “institutionalized persons” as such:

Why two laws?

Those familiar with federal and state RFRAs may ask why a law such as RLUIPA would need to supplement, due to the provisions in the 1993 law. According to Theriot, it’s a “bit of a long story” regarding the Tenth Amendment and the limited powers of the federal government.

“In 1991 Supreme Court handed down the Smith case, which said that any rule that’s generally applicable … the government gets really limited scrutiny on that. In that case it was the use of peyote,” said Theriot.

So, despite a Supreme Court ruling which declared RFRA’s application to states unconstitutional, there still remained a lingering issue of unconstitutional discrimination against religious institutions, especially due to what some scholars see as an “ever-increasing pressure by municipal authorities to limit their physical presence in America's cities and towns.” A 2001 article in the George Mason Law Review written by Roman P. Storzer & Anthony R. Picarello, Jr. outlines the law’s necessity in an ever-changing American religious landscape (in-text citations omitted):

Ergo, RLUIPA was enacted to constitutionally curb religious discrimination in two areas where the federal government has a vital and compelling interest. Whereas RFRA now only applies to federal laws, RLUIPA operates under constitutional provisions such as the “interstate commerce” and “necessary and proper” clauses, according to Theriot, as problems with land use discrimination and religious exercise in prisons had stretched across state and federal lines.

How has it been applied?

While many are familiar with such cases as Hobby Lobby v. Burwell and last year’s chaotic firestorm in Indiana, RLUIPA’s victories have gone largely unnoticed. Here are just a few, courtesy of ADF and RLUIPA.org:

• Centro Familiar v. Yuma: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the City of Yuma had violated RLUIPA by discriminatorily applying building permit laws to religious organizations versus their secular counterparts.
• Holt v. Hobbs: The Supreme Court ruled that a prison must allow a Muslim inmate to grow a .5” beard on the grounds that the prison allowed the same beard length for medical purposes.
• Rich v. Buss: The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Florida correctional facility must provide kosher meals to a Jewish inmate.
• Living Faith Ministries v. Camden County Development Authority: RLIUPA was invoked to protect the property of a New Jersey Church from eminent domain seizure.
• Haven Shores Community Church v. City of Grand Haven, Michigan: RLUIPA was invoked to ensure “that a small local storefront church could occupy a storefront after all,” and was the first case resolved over the new law.

In addition, the Department of Justice has opened 26 RLUIPA cases since Fiscal Year 2012 and filed four suits. Of those investigations, 9 involved mosques or Islamic schools and 11 involved evangelical or Pentecostal churches.  The remainder of the cases involved other churches, a synagogue, a Hindu temple and a Buddhist temple.  According to a Justice Department spokesperson, the vast majority of those investigations resulted in the government entity permitting the religious use.

While RLUIPA may not often earn the ire of religious freedom’s most caustic opponents (SEE: Indiana RFRA), it still serves a vital purpose in the business of protecting free expression while respecting the principle of federalism outlined in the United States Constitution.

For those who seek to build and expand houses of worship in hostile regulatory climates, as well as those for whom faith plays an important role in rehabilitation, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act has been a quiet champion of their religious freedom for nearly two decades.