| Enjoy these last few weeks, guys -- the new boss has all sorts of new ideas, but this is not likely to be one of them. |
[DAILYCALLER] The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing a town in New Jersey for bias after municipal officials refused to approve plans to build a mosque.
In a new court filing, the DOJ alleges that the Bernards Township Planning Board discriminated against the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) and violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act during a lengthy application process that ultimately resulted in the town’s denial of the proposed project.
The town is accused of discriminating against ISBR on the basis of its religion, applying standards of review to the ISBR it had not applied to other congregations and assemblies, and imposing a burden on members of the ISBR for practicing their religion.
"RLUIPA ensures that municipalities must treat religious land use applications like any other land use application," U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. "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." |