Wednesday Q & A

On Wednesday, we will finish up this little unit on exclusionary zoning and then I will save some time at the end of class for some Q & A.

This is a great time to ask questions about Takings, RLUIPA, and Equal Protection and exclusionary zoning.

Think about what you are confused by or struggling with and ask away!

Supreme Court Oral Argument in Holt v. Hobbs

I would like you to listen to the Supreme Court oral argument in Holt v. Hobbs (the RLUIPA prison beard case). We will do this as a way of making up next Wednesday's class, when I am speaking at UMKC law.

here is a link to the oral argument.

The case is not about religious land use, but the Court is interpreting the very same statutory standards that apply when land use laws are challenged under RLUIPA.

You will get more out of the argument if you read the Court's opinion first.

"Judge says Phoenix church cannot feed homeless "

Link. Here is the report:

It's one of the many good deeds for which churches are known, but now a judge has ruled that feeding the homeless is against the law. The ruling is against CrossRoads United Methodist Church in north-central Phoenix and it says that the church is operating as a charity dining hall, which breaks a city zoning ordinance.
The area where the church is located -- Central and Northern avenues -- is zoned as primarily residential. Charity dining halls are considered businesses.
The controversy swirling around the church's weekly pancake worship service started last spring when neighbors complained about an increase in the number of homeless people in the neighborhood, panhandling, burglary, public intoxication and vandalism, among other things.
"We can minister to the poor ... that’s a given," wrote Rev. Dottie Escobedo-Frank on the CrossRoads Web site. "We can hold a worship service for them out on the front lawn. We just can’t feed them. We can’t fill their bellies with warm food. We might as well just go to the street corners and start handing out money, in hopes they will make their way to some food, because you are not allowed to do it at church!"
The decision affects all churches that are located in Phoenix residential areas.
CrossRoads, which maintains that it is operating as a church and not a charity dining hall, plans to appeal the decision. They have until Nov. 24 to do that.

Property and Religious Liberty in the Regulatory/Welfare State

"[T]he greatest threats to religious liberty" in modern America "stem from the insufficient protection of individual liberty in economic affairs." Prof. Richard Epstein

Think about this. Most of the religious liberty cases arising today are cases, like Hobby Lobby, involving extensive regulation of property and economic enterprises.

We will spend 2 or 3 classes studying federal civil rights laws, such as RFRA and RLUIPA, and their application to religious liberty claims in cases involving primarily land use but also economic enterprise.