From https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/news/local_news/us-supreme-court-may-rule-on-home-shul-case/article_e7867132-361e-4dca-98b9-7c23439c0e06.html
According to the lawsuit, Brennan called Grand on Jan. 21, 2021, and said he was not allowed to have any type of religious gathering in his home without first obtaining a special-use permit, under Chapter 1274 of the University Heights Zoning Code.
Grand initially applied for a special use permit to use his home as “a place of religious assembly” in 2021, but later withdrew the application.
“The city lied to me,” Grand said. “They said, ‘Oh, Mr. Grand, it’s not that we don’t want you to have a prayer gathering. That’s just fine if you do when you get a permit. And I said, ‘So I need a permit to pray? And they said, ‘Well, if you get this special-use permit, then you can pray in your house.’ But that was a lie.
“Because little did I know at the time, when I was just trying to be a good Samaritan and do my part and comply with what I thought was the standard practice in this town, I found out through the process, which was a couple of months, that the statue says that if you’re going to convert your house into a commercial application, like an actual synagogue, an actual church or a Starbucks or a Chase Bank, there are no sleeping quarters allowed. They never told me that.”
(That's my reposting limit, but the piece goes on.)
So at first glance, it seems like a poirly-written law. There's more in that article, including the town agreeing to let him have gatherings at his house and that he didn't have to go through the approval process that he had started. But then another former town official claimed that he had presented a very different impression in his original application.
More interesting to me is why all the heavy hitters and big money are piling into the case. Not that I am a lawyer, but it sounds like the intent of the regulation was probably to have a check on, for instance, religious institutions setting up homeless shelters -- which has happened in a number of cases. A church is in a neighborhood, and has a feeding program, and wants to put beds in for overnight use by program guests, that sort of thing. Yet this situation is a kind of reversal -- a homeowner seeking to overturn any municipal control over this general category of mixed use.
It seems like he had an opportunity to walk away, after being told that his use of home as gathering for a minyan was fine. So it will also be interesting to see how this plays out over time, with results that will have far more applicability in ways that aren't part of the current (past, really) situation.
As we have seen with other Supreme Court decisions framed as religious freedom cases, when the big conservative players come in, they are often trying to chip away at separation of church and state, and especially to reduce the "state"/secular power's ability to place any check on what some faith communities consider to be religious practice.
I say "some" faith communities here, because the many progressive faiths and denominations end up being excluded, for example in areas like same-sex marriage, trans inclusion in all aspects of daily life (including health care and sports), and welcoming immigrants.
So this will be one to watch -- thanks for posting the article.
= new reply since forum marked as read