My city says I need a license to pray with friends in my home. The Constitution says otherwise

In America, no one should need a governmental permit to pray. The Creator has already given us that right, and the First Amendment protects it. I learned this lesson through a fight I never expected, a fight that has resulted in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I am an Orthodox Jew. My faith requires me to pray three times a day with a minyan, a quorum of 10 Jewish men. Orthodox Jews don’t drive on the Sabbath or on holidays such as Yom Kippur and Passover. Jewish law also limits ordinary travel on those days, so prayer must be close to where you live.

So, I did what Americans of faith have done since the founding of this country: I sent a simple e-mail to a few of my friends inviting them to pray at my residence.

A JEWISH MAN IN OHIO TRIED TO PRAY AT HOME. HIS MAYOR SAID NO

Before the prayer group had even met one time, the city of University Heights, Ohio, sent me a cease-and-desist order. It told me I could not proceed to gather without pursuing a commercial special-use permit, a zoning process meant for institutional buildings, not a few people gathering in a private home to worship God. The city also threatened me with criminal prosecution if I failed to adhere to their order.

This began as a prayer issue, but it is not only a prayer issue. It is an American issue. This is not just one man’s fight with one small city. It is part of a growing pattern in which local governments use zoning codes, permit requirements, public-hearing processes, and neighborhood opposition to burden free speech and all brands of religious exercise while calling it ordinary land-use regulation.

Similar conflicts are being litigated all over the country involving people of different faiths. The details change a bit from city to city, but the story is familiar: religious people try to gather, pray, build, worship, or mark sacred space; neighbors object; officials reach for zoning tools; and faith is treated as a problem to be managed instead of a freedom to be protected.

The First Amendment does not belong to one faith, one denomination, one political party, or one neighborhood. It belongs to all of us. It protects speech. It protects peaceful assembly. It protects religious exercise. And it protects the right of ordinary citizens to gather with family, friends, and neighbors, and turn their hearts toward God without first seeking permission from the government.

If a family can host a birthday party, friends can watch football, neighbors can play cards, and book clubs can meet in living rooms, then Americans can gather to pray. People gathered in faith should not be treated like a public nuisance.

America isn’t strong because government is powerful. America is strong because the people are.

When the city ordered me to cancel the prayer gathering, that Sabbath was gone forever. No later permit could restore it. No future hearing could give it back. When government chills religious exercise, the injury doesn’t wait for the final stamp of a bureaucrat.

Of course, every constitutional right has limits. The First Amendment protects speech, but it does not protect every possible abuse of speech. It protects assembly, but not violence. It protects religion, but not lawlessness. But peaceful citizens gathering in a private home to pray is not lawlessness. It is exactly the kind of liberty the First Amendment was written to protect.

WHAT RELIGION DO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ESTABLISH?

To me, the principle is simple: So long as a person’s religion is not being used to undermine the Constitution, replace the legal system, or overthrow the American way of life, the government should leave peaceful worship alone. We need to remember that the home is the first place where faith is lived, taught, spoken, sung, and shared.

Through my attorneys with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Alliance Defending Freedom, I am asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear my case so this matter can be decided once and for all, because, to me, no American should need to obtain an in-home prayer permit, and no family should need city approval to open its home to worship. No zoning code formed against us should prosper.

Daniel Grand resides in University Heights, Ohio.