IN THEORY:Who decides where to worship?

A Vietnamese Buddhist congregation is suing Garden Grove for barring it from worshipping at a former medical building and from building a temple on the property. The city manager said the City Council rejected the temple’s plans because neighbors objected to extra traffic, parking and noise the temple might generate. The ACLU is representing the congregation in the lawsuit.This situation presents a conflict between two cherished American freedoms: the right of people to quiet enjoyment of their homes and the right of people to practice their religion. Churches and temples traditionally have been in residential neighborhoods, so this in itself would not be sufficient reason to deny a congregation the use of a property. But in this case, the neighborhood is already being used for mixed purposes. There is a Boys & Girls’ Club nearby, and the property in question was once a medical center. Quan Am Temple has offered to compromise by scaling down the size of its proposed new building and providing shuttle service. I think the congregation should be allowed to worship at the medical building and to build a new temple on the site.

ACLU attorney Belinda Helzer said that kind of city discretion is prohibited by a federal law passed in 2000, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. It prohibits the government from employing land-use regulations to impose a “substantial burden” on religious practice.

Do you think Garden Grove made the right choice siding with neighbors, or should city officials let the congregation worship at the medical building?

Congress seems to have enacted this law for exactly this kind of situation: “The right to build, buy, or rent … is an indispensable adjunct of the core 1st Amendment right to assemble for religious purposes. Religious assemblies, especially new, small or unfamiliar ones, may be illegally discriminated against on the face of zoning codes and also in the highly individualized and discretionary processes of land-use regulation,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The law forbids local governments from treating religious institutions on less than equal terms with nonreligious institutions. The law also prohibits unreasonably limiting religious assemblies, institutions or structures from a jurisdiction.

Buying land and a building for a church or temple in Orange County is expensive and very difficult for newer religious groups. In the United States, many Zen practitioners meet in people’s homes or rent spaces at yoga studios, community centers or churches. Some of the Buddhist congregations that have been the most successful in fundraising have memberships that include many immigrants from Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Because Buddhism is still fairly new to many Americans, there is a tendency to lump us all together. But just as within Christianity there are Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Evangelical and many other denominations, there are also many Buddhist denominations, each with differing philosophies, organizational affiliations, practices and heritages.

I do not know how relevant it was to the city of Garden Grove that this involved a Buddhist organization, but I would support the right of any religious group to build on a proportionate scale in a mixed-use location. We are already inundated by strip malls, 7-Elevens and stucco fourplexes.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

Yes, I think they made the right decision. Jewish Law moves secondary to the laws of the United States. This follows the law that applies called “dina malchut dina.” This means that a governmental appropriation of property or other communal needs is primary compared to the religious needs of any religion, which are secondary in regard to public land. Even Jewish cemeteries have been moved in the past and graves reinterred with their bodily remains in them if the local, state or federal government judges to do so. During the course of one’s religious lifetime, no one can avoid an encounter with a public law that could regulate one’s spiritual life. Another site for the church should be found.

RABBI MARC S. RUBENSTEINTemple Isaiah

Newport Beach

It is amazingly difficult for churches to find property to build on.

Many cities frown on churches because they do not generate property tax income and their architecture is not always consistent with the neighborhood. I don’t know if this temple would create traffic problems, but as long as there is enough parking so it doesn’t create a burden upon local street parking, I see no reason for it not to be built. We are planning on building a church and a kindergarten through eighth-grade school, but we are also looking at making our building community-friendly. Such a building could function during the week as a Boys & Girls’ Club, a senior center, an after-school homework club, a Braille outreach, a family counseling center and/or a Red Cross emergency center. I think Garden Grove should talk to the congregation to see if its building could become a proactive community-friendly temple. Of course, all the community functions must be nonreligious in nature and available to everyone. This would be a fair trade and give back to the community important services that help everyone. New church buildings should also be environmentally friendly and energy self-sufficient.

SENIOR PASTOR JIM TURRELL

Center for Spiritual Discovery

Costa Mesa

Where is the line between regulating construction of faith facilities and obstructing free exercise of religion? Weighing a congregation’s right to assemble against neighborhood concerns over congestion and noise is an increasingly contentious issue across America. The issue of compatibility between established localities and new houses of worship has frustrated parishioners and alarmed residents. Churches and temples see themselves as assets to the community, while homeowners often see them as metastasizing into their domain. Congregations chafe under “discriminatory” policies and people who dig deep to pay property taxes (contra houses of worship which do not) fume over “unwarranted” and “unwanted” incursions. Each feels threatened by the other.

When churches held decorous services once a week, the situation did not have the fiery potential it holds today. Not only do many religious centers seek to build vast facilities, they go far beyond sanctuaries in their blueprints. Enormous numbers of congregants may frequently throng to outsized and intimidating buildings that may be open at all hours and may include shelters, soup kitchens, book stores, gift shops, business enterprises, restaurants, athletic venues, day-care centers, schools and multi-use auditoriums. The usage may be extensive and intensive. The issues of lights and parking alone are particularly inflammatory.

Disruptions due to excessive noise, sprawl and matters pertaining to sanitation also enter into the mix of volatile ingredients.

Those who object are frequently branded as prejudiced, if not satanic, and their reasonable protests condensed into the charge of being opposed to religion. One observer wrote: “When neighbors express their legitimate concern that their property value will be negatively affected by the introduction of a large building and parking lot into their neighborhood, they are subjected to charges of being more concerned with mammon than mission, as though their property rights must take a back seat to the church’s religious agenda.”

I submit that local concerns trump the right to build or expand a presence that might portend severe disruption. It is the creed of many religions that we must all be attentive to and considerate of our neighbors’ sensitivities. If residents fear that their property values will plummet and their lives be adversely affected, such anxiety and antipathy must be respected. I would be surprised to learn that there exists a constitutional right for churches and temples to muscle their way into residential areas, undermine the general welfare and upset the peace of the place.

Many faith groups contemplate visions of the good work they can accomplish upon laboring in an expanding vineyard (albeit with pavement) of the Lord. Many established residents entertain visions of the continuation of their lives as customary, the maintenance of safety and quiet, and the maximizing of property values. In the battle between those who want to win souls and those who want to preserve the soul of their community, my inclination is to favor those who purchased their homes with certain expectations of historic neighborhood identity and quality of life.

Sometimes the master plan is not the plan of the master.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach