Honolulu Advertiser: Maui suit turns into wide test of US Law (Ashcroft)

[La_Serpiente]

We are such a small county. Only 130,000 people live on the island Maui and we don't really ask for trouble. We are a big tourist destination, but that is pretty much it.

Well, I don't know how Ashcroft found us thousands of miles from Washington, but he is ramming this case that deals with zoning with respect to religious institutions down our throats.

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Maui suit turns into wide test of U.S. law

WAILUKU, Maui — Maui's little church dispute is turning into a battle of heavyweights.

The suit originally brought by Hale O Kaula, a tiny Maui congregation, to contest the Maui Planning Commission's decision to deny construction of its chapel has ballooned into a national test case, pitting local governments' power to regulate land uses against a federal law aimed at exempting churches from land-use control.

Lined up behind the church is the biggest heavyweight of them all, the United States government, as well as the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative-backed public interest law firm based in Washington.

Now the county has found some firepower of its own. The National League of Cities, International Municipal Lawyers Association, National Association of Towns and Townships, Alabama Preservation Alliance and three municipalities have filed a "friends of the court" legal brief in its support.

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Ashcroft's crusade