This week brought interesting skirmishing in a federal lawsuit against the city of Hollywood, Florida, accusing it of religious discrimination in its refusal to permit an Orthodox Jewish Chabad group to hold religious services in a house in a neighborhood zoned as residential. (See prior posting.) Yesterday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel detailed the legal maneuvering. The Justice Department asked the court to impose sanctions on the city for its belated production of police memos describing police surveillance of the home of Rosa Lopez. Lopez claims the Virgin Mary appears at her Hollywood home on the 13th of each month. Approximately 100 people show up each month to pray and seek miracles, and the city has never tried to prevent that under its zoning laws. The government is pointing to this discrepancy in making its discrimination claim. The city argues that Lopez’s home is not a house of worship and does not need a special zoning exception.
Justice Department attorney Sean Keveney argued that had the federal government known police were watching Lopez, it would have done its own surveillance to possibly "rebut any testimony offered by the city." Keveney also said the city has provided incomplete information on why it contends Lopez’s home is not a house of worship.
