Source: First Amendment Center Press Release
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/commentary.aspx?id=17529
The village of Suffern, N.Y., treats Orthodox Jews just like everyone else and that’s why it’s being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for religious discrimination.
Equal treatment, it turns out, sometimes keeps the faithful from practicing their faith.
Orthodox Jews, for example, can’t drive on the Sabbath or other holy days. So a Jewish service agency in Suffern built a “Shabbos House” across from the hospital, giving believers a place to stay while visiting patients (the nearest hotel is more than three miles away).
But since the Shabbos House is in an area zoned for single-family homes, the Jewish group requested, and was denied, a zoning variance. Now both the Jewish agency and the federal government have filed suit, claiming the denial unlawfully burdens the Jewish community’s free exercise of religion.
The Suffern conflict is one of many similar disputes across the country. Last month, for example, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case involving the Okemos Christian Center. The church wants to build a larger structure to hold an expanding congregation, but it can’t because of zoning restrictions in Meridian Charter Township, Mich. Although the church prevailed in a lower court, the town appealed the decision.