There is a horrible federal law out there that people need to know about. It is called RLUIPA, which stands for Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

It should be called, "if a house of worship cries enough, you have to give them whatever they want." The law is ruining neighborhoods everywhere and Congress simply needs to eliminate this bad law.

Let's say you live near a church and everything is fine. The church decides that it wants to become one of these new super churches, and wants to triple in size, build broadcast facilities, a store, a billion classrooms, a state of the art recreation facility, and an overly lit parking lot that is three times in size what is there now.

The problem is that this proposed super church doesn't fit on the existing property. The new structure will destroy six acres of wetlands, will pollute an adjacent stream, and technically cannot support the septic system needed for a structure of this size.

Traffic will now become a nightmare, not to mention the fact that the structure will change from one used mostly on Sundays to one that will be intensely used seven days a week, from 8 am until 10pm (on early nights).

The new proposed church will ruin the residential neighborhood if it is allowed. Because of this the local planning agency denies the application. The congregation responds with orchestrated vigils and protests, and then files a lawsuit in federal court claiming its rights to practice its religious beliefs are being burdened by this bad decision to deny the development application.

The church relies on RLUIPA in federal court. While the federal court should tell these people to go out and find a piece of property that is suitable for this development, it may not do so. Instead, relying on this dangerous law called RLUIPA, it may actually rule in favor of the church – thereby destroying the community and as far as I am concerned, any true separation of church and state.

Houses of worship have been abusing RLUIPA all over the country. When they are properly denied by local planning agencies, they cry their way to court waiving the RLUIPA banner. And they always allege the same thing: that their rights to practice their religious beliefs are being unfairly burdened by the land use agency denial.

Under RLUIPA, if a house of worship wins in court, the court can order the municipality to pay all lawyer's fees. And since municipalities are always cash strapped, this scares the heck out of them; so they settle these cases, ignoring the lawful rights of the people who live within the neighborhood.

And houses of worship seem to have no problem distorting the truth about their intended uses. They may claim that recreational facilities, which may actually have little to do with religion or the church's purposes, are key to their mission. The same with oversized broadcast facilities, oversized multi-purpose rooms, oversized dining facilities, and even retail operations.

They may distort their intentions for growth – always understating them. They may also mis-state the basic doctrines of their religion, claiming that whatever they want to build is at the core of their religious beliefs and needs. Houses of worship understand that courts hate taking hard looks at core religious values, and seem to exploit this desire to accept whatever is proposed as gospel.

RLUIPA is a bad law. Well financed groups are supporting this miserable excuse for a law. Its time for good Americans to fight back.

While RLUIPA had good intentions, it is being abused left and right. Mostly right, if you know what I mean. Tell your elected officials that they need to get rid of this dangerous law. It is un-American.

And be careful if you are moving near a house of worship. While you may feel that you will be protected by local zoning laws if the institution seeks to quadruple in size, while RLUIPA is still law you may in fact have little protection.

Finally, organize and fight any out of control places that call themselves pious. If these people are sincere about their beliefs, then they do not want to do onto others what they don’t want done to themselves.

Go to the land use boards, go to court, and reveal these people for the frauds they may be. RLUIPA is hard to fight – but it is certainly not impossible to fight.

Nonetheless, it needs to be stricken from the books. And the sooner, the better for all good Americans.

The information provided in this column is written by Stuart Lieberman,a practicing environmental attorney, and is for general information purposes only. It is not legal advice and should not be used in place of legal advice.

Stuart Lieberman, Esq., and IRED.Com, Inc., will not accept any responsibilty for any reliance on the information in this column or any damages whatsoever resulting from reading this column.