An Arizona city will allow a church to oversee a food distribution ministry that provides aid to hundreds of families in need near the United States’ southern border amid a legal dispute.
The City of San Luis and Gethsemani Baptist Church settled in September through a consent decree entered by a federal court, with the agreement being recently announced.
According to a statement issued Monday by the First Liberty Institute, which represented Gethsemani, the church will be allowed to continue its ministry after city officials initially shut it down.
“Gethsemani Baptist Church has only ever wanted to continue its 25-year mission of providing food for the hungry, hurting people in their community,” said FLI Senior Counsel Ryan Gardner.
“We are grateful that the city’s agreement will ensure that the church can carry on its ministry serving the vulnerable families in Yuma County.”
Gethsemani has operated a local charitable ministry since 1999, which has reportedly helped hundreds of families by providing food and sharing the Gospel.
In March 2024, Gethsemani sued the city, Mayor Nieves G. Riedel, Acting City Manager Jenny Torres and City Code Enforcement Officer Alexis Gomez Cordova.
The complaint contends the city shut down the ministry after Riedel was elected in 2022, because it violated zoning laws, including the parking of semi-trucks in a residential area. Officials deemed the church to be engaging in “commercial-level food distribution.”
“Since 2012, when the City adopted its current Zoning Code, the Church and its Food Ministry were treated as a ‘legal nonconforming use,’ meaning that it could continue to operate in the residential zone,” the complaint read.
“While the Food Ministry has certainly grown in scale in the years since its founding, requiring larger trucks as early as 2002 to effectively transport food and supplies, it has not dramatically changed in scope or character since the Zoning Code was adopted.”
The lawsuit caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed a statement of interest in late July, arguing that the ministry was protected under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.
“Federal law provides broad protection to religious exercise, including for ministries that serve people who are hungry or in need of basic supplies,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ Civil Rights Division in a statement last year.
“Once a municipality applies its zoning code to restrict religious exercise, impacted groups do not need to jump through procedural hoops to obtain relief in federal court. The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that religious groups can properly exercise their rights under RLUIPA.”
In November of last year, Senior U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, a George W. Bush appointee, issued an order denying San Luis’ request to dismiss the lawsuit, concluding that the church had “a plausible claim that it maintains the legal right to continue operating its ministry.”
