The Department of Justice has issued a statement of interest in a fight going on in Oregon between a church whose members want to give food to their community members and a city that wants to restrict that activity.
“Many churches and faith-based organizations across the country are on the front lines serving the critical needs of people experiencing hunger and homelessness,” explained Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Discriminatory zoning restrictions that burden and limit religious organizations’ use of their land violate federal antidiscrimination laws. The Justice Department is committed to enforcing federal civil rights laws to ensure that all religious groups can freely exercise their religious beliefs.”
The fight is raging in U.S. District Court over the decision by the city of Brookings to restrict the activities of St. Timothy’s church.
The church has sued, claiming the city imposed a substantial burden on its religious service with an ordinance that bans the church from serving free meals to people in need more than two days per week.
At issue appear to be violations of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
The DOJ reported for more than a decade before the new city limit, the church provided meal service up to six days per week, even during the COVID pandemic, based on the needs in the community.
The church confirms it has a religious duty to provide help.
The DOJ noted the city claimed RLUIPA did not apply to the city’s actions against St. Timothy’s and that the ordinance did not substantially burden St. Timothy’s religious exercise.
The church’s arguments are the opposite, that RLUIPA does apply and serving meals to the need is a protected religious exercise.
RLUIPA is a federal law that protects religious institutions from unduly burdensome or discriminatory land use regulations.
WND previously reported the Episcopal Diocese in Oregon is joining St. Timothy’s in the dispute.
Church sues when town says it can give away free meals only twice per week
“We’ve been serving our community here for decades and picking up the slack where the need exists and no one else is stepping in,” the Rev. Bernie Lindley said in a statement at the time the dispute developed.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Shortly after Hamas terrorists fired over 5,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and then proceeded to attack the Jewish state by land, sea and air – torturing, burning, beheading and murdering well over a thousand people, including women, children and infants, and wounding and abducting hundreds more – world reaction was, in its own way, almost equally shocking.
For after the biggest one-day mass slaughter of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, what followed was an outpouring of celebratory demonstrations, unbridled Jew-hatred, deliriously gleeful support for Hamas and bitter condemnation of the nation of Israel. Not just in the Arab-Muslim world, but throughout the Western world as well, including all across America.
Why? What is behind the explosion of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-terror sentiment in the United States, where Israel has long been one of America’s closest friends and allies? Why are hordes of young “woke” LGBT demonstrators marching in support of Hamas – when Hamas wouldn’t think twice about binding and blindfolding them and throwing them off the roof of a tall building – as they routinely do in the Muslim world?
It turns out there’s one area of agreement that is so powerful, deep-seated and all-consuming that the vast differences between the deranged left and the murderous jihadists melt away into Kumbaya harmony.
All of this and much more is completely exposed in November’s issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled ISRAEL VS. GLOBAL JIHAD: How Jew-hatred, radical Islam and Leftism are pushing us toward World War III. Beyond a deeply insightful dive into why leftists are surging toward radical Islam – which hates and dreams of raping and butchering them – this Whistleblower issue includes fantastic articles by everyone from top Israeli analyst (and former Israel Defense Forces officer) Caroline Glick to Harvest Christian Fellowship’s Pastor Greg Laurie on the current war in Israel and biblical prophecies regarding the End Times … which he says are now upon us.
WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
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