Pacific Union Conference
Department of Public Affairs & Religious Liberty

Legislative Alert
April 20, 1999

SB- 38,[California]  Land Use Religious Freedom Protection Act goes to
committee

With the political prospects in California precluding a general Religious
Liberty Protection Act,  the California Coalition for the FreeExercise of
Religion is sponsoring SB-38 to address the urgent need to apply religious
freedom principles in the land use context. Under current law,
constitutional claims to the free exercise of religion are typically
ignored by courts when raised in the context of land use.

What this bill is designed to address:

* restrictive zoning decisions that tell churches they are unwelcome,with
a particular impact on minority faith groups.
* restrictive use permits that purport to tell a church what is, oris not,
a ministry of the church, and what public ministries they can providefrom
their own properties. This has prevented churches from operating homeless
ministries, food sharing programs, and schools, to name only a coupleof
examples.
* historic preservation laws that unduly interfere with the abilityof an
existing congregation to provide for its own needs, or to adapt its
property to the doctrine and practices of a new church owner.
* zoning restrictions are used to prevent new congregations from locating
in residential neighborhoods, and are also used to shut down home Bible
studies, under the pretext that the home is not zoned as a church.

The bill is not designed to avoid building codes or parking space
requirements.

The bill adopts a balancing test to require government to justify landuse
restrictions by demonstrating that the restriction is substantiallyrelated
to an important government purpose. Under current law, government officials
have almost unfettered discretion. [The bill text should be on lineat the
California Senate web page. Link to it from our own web site,
www.freedomsring.com.]

There are two very serious land use problems faced by Seventh-day
Adventists today, in California. Solano County, south of Sacramento,has
refused to permit the Vacaville Church to operate a radio station from
church premises, despite the fact that the station would have no disruptive
impact on the community. Second, Central California Conference's campground
at Soquel is under an extremely restrictive use permit that precludes
general use of the property as a retreat facility. This bill wouldaddress
these types of problems.

WHAT TO DO NOW!!!

        The bill is being heard inthe local government committee of the
California Senate on Wednesday, April 21. If it passes, it will thengo to
the Senate Judiciary Committee in May. Since the bill is supportedby
dozens of religious groups, and there is no strong opposition yet on
record, we are fairly confident that politics is not the key issuebefore
this committee. We have not asked everyone to write or call as yet.
However, we do ask you to pray. There are still some technical language
issues to be resolved, that will either strengthen the bill, or possibly,
make the bill politically more difficult to pass. The committee andthe
Coalition need wisdom from above. After we get through this committee,we
will notify you again, and ask you to get busy supporting the bill.

        Thank you for your interest,and for your prayers today. Why not
stop right now, and pause to pray for this bill, for the committee,for
Fred Blum and Alan Brownstein who will be our lead witnesses in testimony
before the committee, and for your religious liberty leaders, Arnold
Trujillo, Lowell Bock and Alan Reinach.

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The Religious Liberty Newsflash and Legislative Alerts are occasional
publications of the Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists,
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Please check our web page for more current news, to check bills we are
following; links to the Congress and state legislatures, and other
religious liberty resources; www.freedomsring.com.

Director, Alan J. Reinach, Esq., free@freedomsring.com;805-497-9457 ext.398.
Government Affairs Director, .
Associate Director, Lowell Bock, 74617.3673@compuserve.com;

For assistance with a religious liberty problem, contact any of theabove
persons.  [We serve five western states, including Arizona, California,
Nevada, Utah and Hawaii.  For problems outside our area, we canrefer to
someone more local.]