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PA Judge: Homeless Feeding Program is Religious Exercise |
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Written by Don Byrd
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Sunday, 12 August 2012 |
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A Pennsylvania Judge has issues a preliminary injunction barring
Philadelphia officials from enforcing a city ordinance that outlaws
feeding the homeless in a public park. In findings of fact and law
issued Friday, the Court agreed with religious organizations plaintiffs
claiming the measure violated religious freedom rights.
Here are some highlights from the opinion:
Sharing
food with the homeless is not merely incidental to plaintiffs’
religious activities in Fairmount Park. To plaintiffs, the act of
sharing food is itself an act of worship. . . .
It is
plaintiffs’ sincere and deeply-held belief that they are called by the
teachings of Jesus Christ to serve the poor where the poor are found.
Members of the King’s Jubilee consider the area of the Parkway in front
of Philadelphia Family Court “sacred ground for acts that seek to
replicate the acts of Jesus Christ in providing sustenance to the poor
and needy where they are found.” It is their belief that “[t]he needy
and homeless sanctify this ground.”
...
Plaintiffs
have established that their sincerely held religious beliefs mandate
that they share food with the homeless where the homeless are found. A
high concentration of homeless people living on the streets in
Philadelphia live along the Parkway. Section 110 does not simply
constrain plaintiffs’ distribution of free food to the homeless along
the Parkway, conduct mandated by plaintiffs’ religions, it terminates
that activity all together. There can be no doubt that a regulation that
completely prohibits an activity by definition “significantly
constrains or inhibits” that activity.
...
What
defendants fail to appreciate is that to plaintiffs, sharing food with
the poor is as much a form of religious worship as is prayer, preaching,
or reading the Bible.
...
Defendants have
failed to show that the ban will advance the dignity of the homeless in
any respect, much less that the ban is the least restrictive means of
accomplishing this goal.
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