A columnist charges that zoning rules across the country restrict or prevent building new churches, synagogues or mosques
"Last week, a constitutional challenge to RLUIPA's land use provisions reached the federal appeals court level for the first time in C.L.U.B. v. City of Chicago. An association of Chicago-area churches complains that the city's zoning laws now make it all but impossible to put a new church in a residential neighborhood anywhere in the city. Worse, Chicago aldermen have gotten into the habit of engineering zoning changes for individual parcels to keep churches from moving in. The trial court judge wrote that such behavior "may be egregious and may even have risen to the level of dishonorable" but he refused to apply the new law's tougher standard.The city isn't alone in its behavior. Across the country, laws inhospitable to religious organizations like Chicago's zoning treatment have become quite typical." Editor's note: Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.
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