Advancing American Freedom led a coalition of 55 co-amici filing an amicus brief in Grand v. City of University Heights, Ohio. In this case, Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jew, is challenging University Heights, Ohio’s use of its zoning laws to prevent him from hosting a prayer group in his own home.
As an Orthodox Jew, Mr. Grand’s religious practice requires prayer with a group of no fewer than ten men. Since Orthodox Jews do not drive on the Sabbath or High Holidays, and since the synagogue was far from his home, Mr. Grand invited others in his community to join him for a minyan prayer session in his home. After a neighbor complained to the city’s mayor, the city sent a cease-and-desist letter that said the prayer group was tantamount to operating a house of worship, which would violate the city’s zoning regulations.
Before the full flowering of American religious liberty, home worship was often the only choice offered to religious minorities. Many of America’s early colonists were themselves fleeing religious persecution, and the Framers understood home worship to be a fundamental part of American religious life. The First Amendment indisputably protects the right to worship in one’s own home.
“The city’s order that Mr. Grand cease and desist from hosting religious gatherings in his home conflicts with the history of religious liberty in the United States, including America’s long tradition of home worship. In the colonies and the early Republic, Americans viewed their homes as natural spaces for religious exercise, including for religious gatherings, and these meetings sometimes preceded the establishment of religious buildings by decades,” said AAF General Counsel J. Marc Wheat. “The First Amendment enshrines Americans’ fundamental right to live out their faith. The Supreme Court should say so and rule for Mr. Grand.”