The seeds of American liberty were planted by those who fled religious persecution and sought a land where they could live according to the convictions of their consciences. But in a suburb of Cleveland, local government officials attempted to prevent one Jewish man, Daniel Grand, from hosting fellow Jews in his house to pray.
The First Amendment demands a higher standard from American public officials. It enshrines the principle beautifully articulated by President George Washington in his letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790 that “every one shall sit in safety under his own Vine and Figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
As an Orthodox Jew, Grand is required to pray three times a day, preferably with a group of at least 10 men to constitute a “minyan.” Because traveling to his synagogue by foot is difficult, Grand invited others in his community to join a prayer session in his home.
When one of Grand’s neighbors discovered his plan, the neighbor complained to the mayor, who had the town’s legal officer send Grand a cease-and-desist letter. It warned him not to proceed because the prayer meetings would be tantamount to operating a house of worship and therefore be violating the town’s zoning laws.
Perhaps such a prayer meeting conjures the image of constricted traffic and blocked driveways as parked cars line the streets. But because Orthodox Jews abstain from driving on the Sabbath and High Holidays, no such inconvenience would have occurred.
When Grand applied to the City’s Planning Commission for a special use permit so that he could proceed with his prayer meetings without running afoul of the local bureaucracy, the city changed the format of his hearing, preventing Grand from amending his application to include additional evidence. Grand withdrew his application when he realized it was not going to be approved.
In response, the mayor sent a new cease-and-desist letter to Grand as well as a letter to the community encouraging them to report any unapproved religious gatherings. It promised that such nefarious activity would be punished with “all appropriate remedies in court.” Despite the mayor’s clear hostility to the religious gathering of Orthodox Jews, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit dismissed Grand’s claims for lack of ripeness.
The history of religious liberty begins in Europe with what the constitutional Framer Tench Coxe would later refer to as “mere toleration.” The ruling religious authority would tolerate the presence of some religious minorities if they confined their worship to private spaces.
For example, in England, the Conventicle Acts of 1664 and 1670 banned public meetings of Catholic and Protestant nonconformist congregations, restricting such groups’ worship to small private gatherings.
Some colonial governments brought these ideas to the New World. Thus, in the colony of New Amsterdam (later New York), Jews were confined to home worship.
But as Americans developed their own ideas, they moved beyond this “mere toleration” to, as the First Amendment calls it, respect for every individual’s “free exercise” of religion. As James Madison wrote in 1785, “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”
In short, God’s authority is higher than that of the government.
Washington’s letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport was thus an expression of the fundamental ideal of religious liberty. In America, Washington wrote, “All possess alike liberty of conscience … It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”
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The Jews of Newport, the descendants of colonists who had fled persecution in colonies that would later become Brazil, Washington wrote, now lived under a government “which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,” and which “requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.”
These are the ideals held by Washington that have animated American religious liberty for centuries, but the local government of University Heights failed to live up to his lofty standard. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to correct this wrong. We hope it will do so.
Paul Teller is a senior adviser for Advancing American Freedom.
Marc Wheat is the general counsel of Advancing American Freedom.