This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A church in Toms River, New Jersey, with plenty of space as it owns 10 acres of land, proposed building a 17-bed overnight shelter as a way to reach out to the needy and help the community.
So officials in the town retaliated with their own plan to confiscate the land and turn it into pickleball courts.
"It is clear that this is being done in retaliation for the church making an application for a homeless shelter," Harvey York, the church's lawyer, told Fox News.
Citing the constitutional standards regarding protections for freedom religion as well as the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, he said, "I don't know that you'll find a lawyer who will say, 'Oh, yeah, they have every right to do this; they're going to win.'"
It is the Christ Episcopal Church that has found itself in the middle of the city's bull's-eye.
And York said while some residents are happy with the idea, "the majority" is shocked and dismayed.
The church had suggested an outreach to the area's homeless with an overnight shelter.
"It didn't take long for neighbors to become concerned," York explained and the result was an ordinance pending before the town council to condemn and take the land, which now already holds the parish house, auditorium, school, sanctuary and deacon's residence.
"Any governmental agency has the right to condemn property for governmental purposes. That's clear. However, the township has never thought of this as a recreational site," York said. "For them to say they need recreational land flies in the face of the facts and their master plan."
He said city officials need to "mind their own business and stay out of the religious affairs of the community."
The report said the church originally proposed its plan in 2023, an agenda that met all state and local regulations.
Litigation is expected, and Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University, said the case could put before the U.S. Supreme Court the "infamous" Kelo v. City of New London case in which the justices decided the government could confiscate land from one party, under its eminent domain, and give it to another party.
In the Kelo case, city officials in New London confiscated property from a private resident to give it to Pfizer for a major development.
Turley noted the ultimate failure of that scheme.
"After all the pain that the city caused its own residents and the $80 million it spent to buy and bulldoze the property, it came to nothing. Pfizer later announced that it was closing the facility — leaving the city worse off than when it began," he explained.
He said the new case does include the possibility of "public purpose" for the land, but still is clouded with the questions over "a pretextual rationale" for the city's decisions.
"There are ample reasons to be concerned about the actions in this case if they are a form of retaliation for the church's shelter plan," he said.
