When Zoning Laws Become a License to Suppress Prayer at Home

City Encouraged Neighborhood to Report Any “Signs of Jewish Worship”

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to hear a case that cuts to the core of the First Amendment: Can the government require permission for Americans to pray in their own homes?

In Grand v. City of University Heights, the answer given by local officials in an Ohio suburb was yes. The Supreme Court should step in with a loud “NO.”

Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jew, invited a small group of neighbors to his home for Sabbath prayer – a minyan, the quorum required for communal worship in his faith. Because Orthodox Jews do not drive on the Sabbath, gathering in a nearby home is not a mere convenience. It is often a necessity. 

Yet after a neighbor complained, the city issued a cease-and-desist order, declaring that Grand’s modest prayer gathering amounted to operating a house of worship in violation of zoning rules. 

That singling out of Grand’s home is a gross violation of the First Amendment. Americans routinely host book clubs, dinner parties, and social gatherings in their homes without government scrutiny. But in this case, the city singled out religious exercise for special restriction – treating prayer differently from every other form of assembly.

Worse still, according to court filings and reporting, city officials escalated their response by encouraging neighbors to report “any signs of Jewish worship” in Grand’s home “to the authorities.” This was not neutral enforcement of zoning rules. It was an ugly echo of some of history’s worst moments.

Advancing American Freedom, joined by dozens of amici, rightly underscores what is at stake: “The right to worship in one’s home is indisputably within the scope of the First Amendment’s protections.” That is not a novel claim. Home-based worship was common at the Founding – often the only option available to religious minorities. Nor is home worship solely a Jewish custom. House churches have been a feature of Christianity from ancient Rome to contemporary China.

The lower courts never meaningfully addressed that constitutional question. Instead, they dismissed Grand’s case on procedural grounds, holding that his claims were not “ripe” because he had not completed a burdensome zoning process. 

As Protect The 1st noted in our brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, there is a split between the First and Eleventh Circuits – which hold that Americans should be able to vindicate their rights before the government decides whether to exempt them from its zoning laws – and the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits, which do not. We told the Court:

“This Court’s review is necessary to resolve that split and provide a remedy to religious landowners living in those circuits that require a final decision from the government before the landowner can sue.”

We cited the Court’s recent declaration that the “loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

Without this correction, government officials will be able to chill religious exercise through threats and bureaucratic hurdles, while insulating those actions from judicial review.  As Grand’s cert petition tells the Court, religious freedom “is not a privilege to be rationed by administrative gatekeepers.” 

If allowed to stand, local authorities could selectively enforce zoning laws to suppress unpopular or minority faiths – precisely the kind of discrimination that Congress sought to prevent in passing the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

This case is not just about one homeowner in Ohio. It presents a broader and urgent question: whether the First Amendment protects the most basic form of religious exercise – prayer among friends in a private home – from government interference.
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There is no excuse for a city anywhere in America to urge neighbors to report “signs of Jewish worship to the authorities.” The Justices should take this case and reaffirm a simple but vital principle: No American needs a zoning permit to pray with friends in his own living room.

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