Conference receives permission to join Vision Church lawsuit
Conference receives permission to join Vision Church lawsuit
April 12, 2004
By United Methodist News Service
Bishop C. Joseph Sprague
Bishop C. Joseph Sprague
A
federal judge has allowed the Northern Illinois Annual Conference to
join a lawsuit against a community that had stopped construction of a
United Methodist sanctuary on church-owned property.
Federal
Judge Charles R. Norgle granted the conference permission to intervene
as co-plaintiffs in Vision United Methodist Church's 4-year-old land-use
battle against Long Grove (Ill.) Village. The conference, a regional
unit of the denomination, comprises 400 churches, including the Vision
congregation.
Last
August, the predominantly Korean-American congregation filed a $5
million civil rights lawsuit against the community, charging that
members of Long Grove had "maliciously" worked to stop development of a
church on the church's property.
Conference
counsel Sam Witwer requested permission from the U.S. District Court
for the conference to be a co-plaintiff in the case. Norgle granted the
conference and Bishop Joseph Sprague's motion April 7.
Another co-plaintiff is the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty group that joined the case in August.
In
June 1999, Vision Church signed a contract to buy 28 acres of land in
unincorporated Lake County on the condition that the Village of Long
Grove would annex the land and approve the church's plans to construct a
worship facility. The congregation bought the land at the corner of
Gilmer and North Kruger roads for $1.1 million in September 2000.
After
more than a year of negotiations, protests by residents, hearings and
revisions to architectural plans, the Village of Long Grove rejected the
church's request for annexation and approval. The congregation then
applied to Lake County for a building permit. As county officials were
approving the church's development plans, Long Grove began a forced
annexation of the church property.
Vision's
lawsuit charges that Long Grove violated the First and 14th Amendments
to the Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons
Act of 2000.
Witwer
said that of all of the religious land-use abuse cases he has
encountered, "this one strikes me as the most egregious involving any
community."
Sprague
called the conference's intervention precedent-setting because the
Vision church has cooperated with Long Grove Village in doing all that
has been asked of it, but "for reasons that I cannot comprehend, (the
village has) blocked them at every turn."
The
community's actions are "un-American and un-Christian," Sprague said.
"As Christians in the Wesleyan tradition, we cannot stand back and not
allow scriptural holiness to be spread across the land."
Witwer
said the Vision church "continues to follow the letter of the law in
seeking justice for their constitutional rights to build a house a
worship."
An
attorney for the Village of Long Grove was unavailable for
comment. News media can contact Linda Green at (615) 742-5470
or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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