Thai Meditation Association of Alabama v. City of Mobile (11th Circuit, 2022)

At issue in this case is the right of the Thai Meditation Association of Alabama (TMAA) to offer meditation services on property it owns in Mobile, Alabama. TMAA has faced repeated obstacles in its effort to build its facility even though the property is located in a zoning district that encourages religious uses. The brief — filed in coalition with the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, the ACLU, Muslim Advocates, the Orthodox Union, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Sikh Coalition and the Thai American Bar Association — asserts that the basis for the city’s opposition is unjustified, that the opposition is rooted in religious intolerance, and that the city’s action violates TMAA’s rights under federal and state law, including RLUIPA, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.