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Church wins key zoning case
The town of Evanston, Illinois, violated a Vineyard church's rights to free speech, assembly, and equal protection of the laws when it banned the church from using its newly purchased office building for worship services, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

"Vineyard's congregants may permissibly stage … a production of the musical 'Fiddler on the Roof,' which includes a scene depicting a traditional Jewish wedding. Vineyard may not, however, host an actual religious wedding," U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled. "Evanston's claim that it has zoned purely for land use purposes and not on the basis of religion is not supported by the facts."

The city had argued—as many do in fights against churches—that allowing the building to be used for worship would hurt the town financially, with traffic, parking, and the loss of tax revenues. But Pallmeyer said it had no evidence to suggest that.

"The city argues that even tax-exempt cultural organizations are preferable to religious institutions because they tend to draw more people into Evanston who will dine in the city's restaurants and visit the city's shops. Evanston offered no evidence, however, that people attending church services do not eat in city restaurants or shop in Evanston stores. … Nothing in this record suggests that Evanston is better off financially because [the church property] is operated solely as a cultural, rather than a religious, facility."

The ruling is an important one for church zoning, but Pallmeyer avoided the church's claims that the city had violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which prohibits cities from putting "a substantial burden" on religion unless they have "a compelling interest." Evanston, Pallmeyer ruled, didn't put a substantial burden on the church. The Vineyard congregation "has undoubtedly suffered serious hardships," she wrote, but it was, after all, able to meet in a nearby school.

Vineyard's attorney, Mark R. Sargis, called the ruling a "great day for the First Amendment and a great victory for the church."

 "We're glad this is over," executive pastor William Hanawalt told the Chicago Tribune. "It was regrettable for us to take this to the courts. It is not the posture we want to have toward our city, but we felt their inflexibility left us no alternative."

But the long dispute might not be over, says Evanston's attorney, Jack Siegel "We're not opposed to religion, but I think it's the wrong place for a church," he told the Tribune. He says (and the church admits) that the congregation knew of the zoning difficulties when they bought the office space. "The hardship was self-created. They came and thumbed their noses at the City Council," he said.

Will the city appeal? There may be a problem. Pallmeyer declined to award any compensation to the church, suggesting that the two sides come to an agreement outside the court. "She has held that we violated a couple of the counts and ruled in our favor on other counts," Siegel told the Evanston Review. "Until there is some determination of what the relief might be, I'm not sure we can appeal."

Christian aid for Iraq questioned:

• No strings attached | For Iraq's suffering people, aid is aid—Christian or otherwise (Franklin Graham, Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• Groups critical of Islam are waiting to aid Iraq | The situation presents a dilemma for the Bush administration, which does not want to alienate its strong Christian evangelical constituency but cannot afford to have the war in Iraq perceived as a crusade to Christianize a Muslim nation (The New York Times)
  
  

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March (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47