MCLU Files Suit to Protect Religious Freedom

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Today, the Maine Civil Liberties Union Foundation filed suit in federal court against the City of Portland to protect the religious freedom of the Portland Masjid and Islamic Center, a group of Afghan Muslims, who wish to use a former television repair shop on Washington Avenue to hold prayer services, religious study, and other religious observances.  The City, pointing to zoning ordinances that regulate the use of property as a “church or other place of worship” has forbid the group from using the property, even though the owner bought the property three years ago for this specific purpose.  The MCLU is asking the Court to tell the City of Portland that, when local zoning ordinances come in conflict with federal law and the U.S. Constitution, the zoning ordinances must give way.

“Freedom of religion is the first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights,” said MCLU Legal Director Zachary Heiden.  “The government is not allowed to impose harsh restrictions on that freedom, but unfortunately that is exactly what the City of Portland had done.”

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) explicitly forbids governmental entities from implementing land use regulations in a manner that substantially burdens the exercise of religion.

This is not the first time that the City of Portland’s restrictions on religious land use have come under attack.  In 2008, the MCLU worked with lawyers and religious leaders from across the State to protect the religious freedom of Rabbi Moshe Wilansky, who has hosted study and prayer in his home for more than 20 years.  Portland Code Enforcement official sought to shut those services down, citing the same lot-size and parking requirements at issue in the current case.  But while the City ultimately acquiesced in that case, they have remained intransigent in this one. 

This is despite the fact that within approximately one mile of the Washington Avenue property in question, there are eight churches, including a Baptist church; a Jehovah’s Witness hall; a Catholic church, chancery and parish hall; an Episcopal church; a Methodist church; and a Seventh Day Adventist church.  The neighborhood also includes two banks, two pizza parlors, two convenience stores, a flower shop, and a gas station, none of which were required to meet the heightened zoning requirements faced by the Portland Masjid and Islamic Center.

“The City of Portland is sacrificing constitutional principle for bureaucratic rule,” said MCLU Executive Director Shenna Bellows.  “You shouldn’t need a permit to pray.”

Maine’s Afghan Muslim community is small, and it lacks a place of its own to preserve its religious and cultural heritage.  Relations between the Afghani community and the much larger Somali community are very positive, but the linguistic and cultural differences between them make communal worship difficult.

“Portland is a complex and cosmopolitan city that's increasingly diverse. We need to move beyond tolerance and really celebrate the racial, cultural and religious differences. Old assumptions about how and where people worship will have to be re-examined, too. The freedom to gather for worship is fundamental and communities need to amend any policies that infringe on that right,” said Reverend John McCall of the First Congregational Church of South Portland.

With the approach of Ramadan, the holy month in the Muslim calendar, the need for a prayer space has grown even more pressing.  Many of the observances associated with Ramadan are meant to be performed with other members of the community.  The Plaintiffs in this case hope that, by the time Ramadan begins, the City of Portland will agree to allow them back onto their property.

“Portland is a beautiful diverse city,” said Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld of Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh. “All religious groups, including religious minorities, should have places to gather and worship freely.”

“There is no religious group that has not been persecuted somewhere in the world at some time in history,” said Reverend Jill Job Saxby, Executive Director, Maine Council of Churches.  “As people of faith, we know that freedom to worship, each in our own way, is fundamental both to the integrity of our civil democratic society and to the flourishing of the spiritual values of compassion, peace and justice that we pray will underpin our life together.  Civil authority and the law should always err on the side of more freedom, to ensure that any religious group does not suffer undue burdens on its freedom to pray, worship, study and serve in its own way.” 

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