By McKenna Horsley
Kentucky Lantern
Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a Northern Kentucky church to build an outdoor shrine.
The move is another step in a years-long legal battle for the church, Our Lady of Lourdes parish, which is operated by a Roman Catholic religious order the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist in Park Hills.
Coleman is leading a coalition of 20 Republican attorneys general to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the matter under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 2000.
A press release from the attorney general’s office on April 27 said the order had zoning approval from the city in 2021 “to build a modest shrine offering a quiet place for meditation and worship before and after Mass,” but neighbors opposed the shrine in court.
“In this country, we cannot allow a heckler’s veto to trump religious liberty,” Coleman said. “It’s not up to the courts to decide how we practice our faith. We’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to provide nationwide clarity and stand with people of faith who simply want to worship without unlawful government interference.”
In a 6-1 December ruling, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that “no violation of RLUIPA occurred” and ended the city’s permit to the church. Chief Justice Debra Lambert, who wrote the majority opinion, said the order “concedes that in 2021 it ‘voluntarily’ submitted an application for a grotto that was smaller in size than it originally intended.”
Previous local media reports say residents who have opposed the building of the shrine are concerned about increased traffic in the area. Park Hills has a population of a little more than 3,100.
States joining Kentucky are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.
This story first appeared in the Kentucky Lantern, a member States Newsrooms, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. It is reprinted here under Creative Commons license.