Can Your Town Ban Your Bible Study? ACLJ Files at the Supreme Court To Defend Religious Liberty

We’ve seen increasing hostility toward people of faith. Towns are banning public prayer and shutting down Bible studies in people’s homes. Now the fight for religious liberty has reached the Supreme Court. We just filed a critical amicus brief to stop localities from banning Bible studies.

That is exactly what happened to Mr. Grand, an Orthodox Jew in University Heights, Ohio, who simply wanted to host a minyan – a prayer quorum of 10 or more – in his home. Mr. Grand sought a permit from the city of University Heights to host small-group Jewish prayer services in his home. What followed was a campaign of governmental pressure – quasi-judicial hearings, demands for architectural drawings, escalating administrative requirements, neighbor surveillance, and outright antisemitic intimidation – designed not to achieve any legitimate land-use purpose, but to make religious observance too costly to continue. When Mr. Grand, exhausted and financially drained, withdrew his permit application, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him – concluding that he was “the author of any chilling effect on his First Amendment interests.”

That ruling gets cause and effect exactly backward and jeopardizes one of the most quintessential elements of religious liberty – gathering with fellow believers in one’s own home. As our brief explains, a man who flees a burning building is not responsible for the smoke in his lungs.

The Sixth Circuit imported a procedural rule from Williamson County – a property takings case – and applied it wholesale to a religious liberty claim under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Under this “finality requirement,” Mr. Grand could not seek federal relief until he had completed the very administrative process the government was weaponizing against him.

But First Amendment harms don’t work like economic harms. When government action causes a reasonable person to curtail their religious practice – to cancel a prayer service, to abandon a Bible study or small-group study – the constitutional injury is immediate and real. It doesn’t wait for a zoning board’s final ruling. Congress enacted RLUIPA to provide very broad protection for religious liberty. A finality rule that closes the courthouse door until a municipality finishes its harassment campaign defeats that mandate entirely.

For Orthodox Jews, home-based prayer is not a preference – it is often a religious necessity. The practice of daven (daily prayer) and praying in a minyan carries deep spiritual significance and is at the core of Jewish observance. Mr. Grand cannot relocate his minyan to an institution with attorneys on retainer. For him, the administrative gauntlet isn’t the path to relief – it is the injury itself.

This is not an isolated case. The ACLJ has confronted this exact pattern of municipal overreach repeatedly. We’ve seen it in Fairfax County, Virginia, where officials proposed crippling home Bible studies. We’ve seen it in Georgia, where a retired couple was told their home ministry violated zoning law. We’ve seen it in Manhattan Beach, California, where a resident was told he could host 100 people to watch The Lord of the Rings – but not to gather for worship. In each case, RLUIPA was the shield that protected them. And in each case, thanks to the ACLJ’s legal efforts, the government backed down before any “final decision” was ever issued – meaning that under the Sixth Circuit’s rule, these victims would have had no recourse at all.

The ACLJ’s amicus brief urges the Supreme Court to grant certiorari, reverse the Sixth Circuit, and make clear that RLUIPA’s protections apply when the government uses the zoning process itself as a weapon – not just when it reaches a formal final decision. The communities RLUIPA was designed to protect – small, home-based, and without institutional legal resources – cannot afford to wait.

We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will take this case. It is far beyond protecting Jewish religious gatherings; it would protect every church small group in the country from this kind of unconstitutional intrusion on religious liberty.