The Justice Department filed a lawsuit last week against Bernards Township, New Jersey, for denying zoning approval to allow the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge to build a mosque on a piece of land it owns in alleged violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA).
The land is located in a zone that, at the time of the Islamic Society’s zoning request, permitted the construction of places of worship as a matter of right.
The society, led by the former mayor, Mohammad Ali Chaudry, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Newark earlier in March, accusing the town’s planning board of breaking RLUIPA. The proposal to build the mosque was mooted in Nov. 2011 when Chaudry, a retired AT&T executive who has also served as the township’s mayor, decided with some friends to open a mosque in the township where he has lived for some 40 years and has been on its board of education and has led a task force to create the town’s community center.
But the society could not have its mosque proposal sanctioned by the board as the latter rejected it year after year under one ground or the other.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleged that Bernards Township’s denial of approval for the mosque discriminated against the Islamic Society based on its religion and the religion of its members; applied standards and procedures on the Islamic Society that it had not applied to other religious and non-religious assemblies in the past; and imposed a substantial burden on the Islamic Society’s religious exercise. The complaint also alleged that the township violated RLUIPA by amending its zoning ordinance in a manner that imposes unreasonable limitations on all religious assemblies.
“Sixteen years ago, Congress passed RLUIPA unanimously – with diverse religious and ideological support – because it recognized the fundamental right of all religious communities to build places of worship free from discrimination,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division after the department filed the lawsuit against the township Nov. 22. “No congregation or community should ever face unlawful barriers to practicing their religion and observing their faith.”
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman of the District of New Jersey said that as alleged in the complaint, Bernards Township has treated the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge differently than other houses of worship.
“RLUIPA ensures that municipalities must treat religious land use applications like any other land use application. But here, township officials kept moving the goalposts by using ever-changing local requirements to effectively deny this religious community the same access as other faiths,” he said.
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