United States Seventh Circuit

In a suit under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act alleging that a city's requirement that a church obtain a zoning variance was unlawful, denial of a preliminary injunction is reversed and remanded where: 1) the city could not define religious use or grant privileges to religious organizations so expansively as to justify excluding churches from districts where, except for the expansive definition or grant of privileges, the exclusion would be discriminatory; and 2) the existence of alternative sites for a church is relevant only when a zoning ordinance is challenged as imposing a "substantial burden" on religious uses of land, rather than violating the equal-terms requirement at issue in the appeal.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/30/2007
• Published 10/30/2007

Judges

• POSNER, Circuit Judge., Before POSNER, FLAUM, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David R. Langdon (argued), Langdon & Hartman, Cincinnati, OH, for Plaintiff-Appellant., Eric W. Treene (argued), Karl N. Gellert, Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Appellate Section, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae.


• For Appellees:
  
• James B. Osborn, Lakshmi Hasanadka (argued), Office of the Corporation Counsel, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendants-Appellees.