College Founded by ‘Christian Nationalist’ Pastor Claims Religious Discrimination by Zoning Officials

A small Christian college founded by controversial, self-described “libertarian theocrat“ and “Christian nationalist” pastor Doug Wilson claims in a new lawsuit that officials in Moscow, Idaho, are using the city’s zoning code to discriminate against its religious mission. 

In a complaint filed in federal court in early September, New Saint Andrews College argues that Moscow officials have imposed on it a long list of permitting requirements, use restrictions, and parking mandates that apply to no other entity in town. 

While other businesses in the downtown are not required to provide any parking, the lawsuit claims, New Saint Andrews must maintain 89 parking spaces. The city has allowed the public University of Idaho to operate an art gallery in the downtown zone, while preventing New Saint Andrews from doing the same, reads the complaint. 

Most recently, Moscow has prevented New Saint Andrews from performing administrative work in office space it rented in the city’s downtown. City zoning staff argue that such work would qualify as a “college and university” use that is not allowed in the downtown zone. 

In order to comply with the zoning restriction on university uses, New Saint Andrews has been required to hire a third-party business service organization to do the exact work in the exact same space. 

The college’s lawsuit attributes this disparate treatment to officials’ hostility to its particular brand of Protestantism, citing public statements from a city councilmember about the need to “fight” Wilson’s “Christian nationalist church.”

Prior to making those comments, the same councilmember had voted to reject a zoning variance New Saint Andrews had requested that would have allowed the college to use its downtown office space directly. 

New Saint Andrews’ lawsuit claims this amounts to a violation of the U.S. and Idaho’s protections of individual liberty. They also claim that Moscow is violating a federal law that places robust restrictions on localities’ ability to regulate religious land uses. 

Wilson, who continues to be a trustee and senior fellow at the college, is a controversial figure both locally in Moscow and nationally, given his advocacy for a Protestant confessional state that restricts the public expression of other faiths and imposes legal sanctions on biblically proscribed behavior like adultery and homosexuality. 

Other affiliates of his church have made similar claims of religious discrimination by zoning officials in other Northern Idaho towns. 

The city of Moscow did not respond to Reason‘s request for comment. New Saint Andrews declined Reason‘s request for comment. 

Hostility to Wilson and his church could well explain Moscow’s seemingly arbitrary restrictions on New Saint Andrews. But zoning officials need no special cause to impose arbitrary restrictions on property owners. 

Zoning codes commonly regulate activities that produce the same neighborhood effects (or even no neighborhood effects) differently depending on who’s doing them. 

A person recording music in their garage with a friend is permissible. A person recording music in their garage for a paying client is a zoning violation. A local burrito restaurant is fine. A chain burrito restaurant serving the same food in the same place is a zoning violation. Etc. 

In the New Saint Andrews case, it clearly makes no difference to the wider world whether its administrative work is performed by the college directly or if it is farmed out to a contractor. Only in the pages of Moscow’s zoning code does this physically imperceptible distinction matter.  

Fortunately for the college, federal law provides explicit protections for religious land uses. Similar to restrictions on speech, the law requires local land use regulations of religious uses to be narrowly tailored to achieving a compelling government interest. 

New Saint Andrews seemingly has a strong case that Moscow’s arbitrary restrictions on it specifically violate those federal legal protections. 

As one final note, it is somewhat ironic that a college with such close ties to Wilson would make a religious liberty claim about the land use regulations being imposed on it. 

In various interviews, Wilson said that in his ideal America, there would be explicit restrictions on the public expressions of other faiths, whether that’s Hindu statues, minaret-sporting Mosques, or Catholic Marian processions. 

As it stands, the First Amendment does not allow explicit religious discrimination. Federal law would further protect the Hindu statue or the Mosque’s architectural embellishments from the arbitrary whims of the zoning board. 

New Saint Andrews is now making use of the same neutral protections of religious liberty and religious land uses that Wilson would deny others. Perhaps the lawsuit will provide a teachable moment about the value of broadly applicable protections of individual liberty.