Agudath Israel Welcomes Supreme Court Decision to Hear Case Regarding Right to Religious Gatherings in the Home 

Agudath Israel of America welcomes the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision yesterday to hear Grand v. City of University Heights, Ohio, a case involving the right to hold religious gatherings in the home.

Agudath Israel filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in April, along with other religious liberty advocates, asking the Supreme Court to consider the case, which raises important questions under the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), with significant ramifications for religious Americans across the country.

The case centers on Daniel Grand, a man who sought to organize an at-home minyan (a Jewish prayer gathering requiring a quorum of ten men) on the Jewish Sabbath. Because observant Jews cannot drive or use electronics on the Sabbath, concerns about traffic and noise violations were entirely negated. Nonetheless, the City of University Heights treated the gathering as “a home operating as a house of worship” and required Mr. Grand to obtain a special use permit, while also encouraging neighbors to report the gathering and deploying police surveillance of the home. Mr. Grand sued the University Heights in federal court, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reach the merits of his religious-liberty claims, ruling instead that they were not yet ripe because the local zoning board had not yet made a final determination as to whether the permit requirement applied to his gatherings.

Agudath Israel’s brief urged the Supreme Court to review that decision, arguing that religious Americans should not be forced to submit to a discretionary permitting regime before a court may consider whether government action has already chilled core religious exercise in the home.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to hear this case is an important development for religious liberty,” said Daniel Kaminetsky, General Counsel of Agudath Israel. “A small prayer gathering in a private home is not merely a land-use issue. It is a core exercise of faith. Zoning laws and permit requirements should not be used to burden religious worship in the home. The First Amendment and RLUIPA were designed to protect religious practice from exactly this kind of government interference, and we are grateful that the Court will now have the opportunity to reaffirm that religious worship is not dependent on the permission of local officials.”