A woman in Texas recently alleged that police officials infringed upon her religious freedom by fining her $2,000 for feeding the homeless in the city of San Antonio. Joan Cheever, who has reportedly given out free meals from her food truck in a public park for the last two years, was issued a ticket by police when she parked her truck to feed the homeless last week. After informing the police that they were hindering her free exercise of religion, Cheever pointed to the state and federal Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that have previously caused much debate in Indiana and Arkansas on similar grounds.
“One of the police officers said, 'Ma'am if you want to pray, go to church,' ” Cheever told the media last week. “And I said, 'This is how I pray, when I cook this food and deliver it to the people who are less fortunate.' ”
San Antonio officials have said the problem is that Cheever did not have the necessary permit for a mobile food dispenser.
“The citation was issued for failing to adhere to long-standing regulations that are in place to ensure public health and safety,” city spokeswoman, Thea Setterbo, said in an email.
Setterbo further explained that the police have been working with Human Services officials to persuade people in carrying out some amount of charity at a homeless shelter suburb. Setterbo did not clarify, however, why the city decided to implement the directive last week and not any time before that.
While it is possible that Cheever's permit had expired, her fine seems to be the latest in a series of high-profile attempts by local government officials to dissuade people from feeding the homeless publicly. Police in Daytona fined a religious couple for feeding the homeless in a public park last May, and police in Fort Lauderdale arrested a 90-year-old pastor two times for doing the same.
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, over the last two years, 21 cities have insisted that people stop feeding the homeless publicly. Lawmakers in these cities have reportedly passed such ordinances for the sake of safety, but social activists and their legal representatives say such efforts have been made to eradicate the local homeless population.
On April 14, Cheever went back to the park along with supporters to protest against the local administration. She also told the media that she would be contesting her fines on grounds of religious freedom, despite the website for her food truck (Chow Train) saying nothing specific about her religious mission.
Doug Laycock, an expert on religious freedom laws and professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said there have been many court cases linking religious freedom with homeless feeding operations, with both sides winning from time to time. He believes Cheever's case could boil down to whether the permitting process is overly trying for those that seek it.
“If she really doesn’t qualify for a permit, because of some reason related to the safety of the food, the court may be more deferential and less protective,” Laycock said in an email. “But it sounds like that is not the most likely possibility.”
Laycock said courts in Texas have been trying diligently to enforce the state’s religious freedom law. In 2013, a federal court in Texas ruled against a Dallas ordinance that limited the number of places where charities could feed the homeless.
District judge Jorge Solis had written at the time, “The homeless feeders are religiously motivated institutions that are afforded statutory protection to practice their religions without being substantially burdened by government regulation.”
Photo Credits: The Blaze
