You shouldn’t need permission from bureaucrats to pray in your own home

A zoning technique is used to keep Americans out of court when the government freezes their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court needs to put an end to this.

When the government threatens you for exercising a constitutional right, can it force you to engage in a bureaucratic battle before the federal court hears your case? On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Grand v. The City of University Heights agreed to answer that question next term in the case. He should answer no.

A prayer group and a cease and desist letter

ARKANSAS RANKS TOP FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS AFTER SANDERS EXPANDED BASIC PROTECTIONS

Daniel Grand is an Orthodox Jew living in University Heights, Ohio. His faith calls him to pray with a minyan, a quorum of ten, and forbids driving on Shabbat. This makes it impossible to go to a distant synagogue. He invited a dozen neighbors to pray at his home, but someone complained. Days later, on January 21, 2021, the city of University Heights sent Grand a cease and desist letter. The city told Grand that he would need to obtain a special use permit to use his home as a “religious meeting place.” If he failed to obtain the permit and continued to host a minyan, he could be prosecuted and fined for infractions. All the while, their neighbors were free to host friends to watch a ball game, play poker, or socialize.

Grand canceled the next prayer meeting and applied for a permit through University Heights’ zoning process. But this process was hostile because it was Kafkaesque. Grand was put in a difficult situation at a zoning board hearing when a neighbor expressed fears that the neighborhood would be “labeled Jewish.” What about that special use permit? Grand learned that if he received the necessary permission, his house would be changed to a “place of worship” within the scope of the zoning law. This meant Grand could pray there, but he could not sleep there as it would no longer be considered a residence. Grand abandoned the permit process and instead filed a civil rights lawsuit to protect his First Amendment right to pray in his own home.

When Grand sued under the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), the courts never got to the bottom of it. A unanimous Sixth Circuit panel dismissed the case as immature. A “final decision” could not be reached because Grand withdrew his permit application. And according to the 1985 case Williamson County Planning v. Hamilton Bank, the land use claim remains inchoate until government officials reach a final decision through the prescribed administrative process. The Sixth Circuit took a rule on property takings and used it to close the courthouse door on a First Amendment claim.

MORNING GLORY: THE SUPREME COURT OFFICIALLY CLOSED THE BOOKS FOR ANOTHER TERM

The finality rule makes sense in a debt lawsuit because the damage depends on the administrative process. You won’t know if a regulation is taking too much of your property’s value until you know how far it goes. But the First Amendment case is different. Grand was injured the moment he received the cease and desist letter. He read the threat to the city. He did not pray. He canceled his minyan. Supreme Court decision in Susan B. Anthony List v. As he noted in the Driehaus case, a credible threat of enforcement is itself actionable harm. Making the grand exhaust a rebuilding process will not worsen an injury that has already occurred.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FOX NEWS APPLICATION

The Sixth Circuit handed the government a treacherous playbook. Any city that wants to close a house of worship, a bookstore, or an unpopular gathering can order it to stop, request a permit, and then lock the courthouse door, hiding behind bureaucratic panels and hearings. The division between circuits makes matters worse: The same oppression applies in one part of the country but remains untouched in another, so your right to pray in your own home depends on your zip code.

The principle that Grand represents… is magnificent. The Constitution does not require Americans to ask permission before gathering in their own homes and praying. We should be able to go to court immediately when an official requests permission to pray. We should not first submit to unconstitutional permit requests by subjecting ourselves to the zoning process. The rule of finality belongs to the reception of the law. There’s no business locking the courthouse door on First Amendment claims. The court should say so clearly when it hears an argument this fall.