CV NEWS FEED // A ruling in a legal case about homelessness has failed to recognize religious-based shelters, according to the religious liberty law foundation Becket Fund.
In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson against the City of Grants Pass, Oregon.
In a recent email news release, Becket wrote that “the Ninth Circuit ruled that the city’s prohibition of camping on public property is a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which forbids government from imposing ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment.”
However, the case escalated up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments for the case on April 22. A decision on the case is expected by June.
Becket Fund filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court on March 4, out of concern that religious-based shelters were ignored in the Ninth’s Circuit’s ruling.
“The Ninth Circuit reasoned that the city’s laws were cruel and unusual punishment because there were not enough shelter beds in the city to house the entire homeless population,” Becket stated in the news release:
However, the court subtracted all the beds in religious homeless shelters when making its tally.
We at Becket were there to say that no matter what policy views one might have about homelessness, courts should not be allowed to discredit and ignore the critical work of religious shelters.
Daniel Chen, counsel at Becket, stated in a news release on April 22, “Ignoring the good work of religious homeless shelters flouts basic human decency and common sense. These ministries should not be treated as suspect when they are on the front lines helping solve our nation’s homelessness problem.”
The Ninth’s Circuit’s ruling was based on an outdated – and misguided, according to Becket – legal standard known as the Lemon test.
“Based on Lemon, courts for decades incorrectly applied the Establishment Clause, driving religious people and religious ideas out of public life,” the email news release from Becket reads.
Becket’s amicus brief highlights that the Supreme Court overruled the Lemon test in 2022 in its ruling for Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. Despite this, lower courts still sometimes use the Lemon test.
The amicus brief “urges the Supreme Court to reject the Ninth Circuit’s misguided view of the Establishment Clause,” the April 22 news release notes.
Chen stated in the April 22 news release, “Lemon’s specter still casts a dark shadow across the country, including the Ninth Circuit. The Justices should remind courts that it has already banished this phantom doctrine from our nation’s law so that it can no longer haunt religious people and institutions.”
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