Religion · Northern Kentucky (Cincinnati area), KY Metro · October 3, 2026
Supreme Court to Weigh Religious Liberty vs. Local Zoning in KY Case
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The neighbors did not argue theology; they argued the City of Park Hills' own rulebook back at the city. Their suit said the Board of Adjustment had broken its own ordinance — new religious buildings in the R-1EE zone must face an arterial street, and Amsterdam Road is classified a collector — and the Kentucky Court of Appeals and, on December 18, 2025, the Kentucky Supreme Court agreed the Board exceeded its authority and impermissibly enlarged a nonconforming use. The Missionaries' own application had acknowledged the restriction and asked for approval anyway, which is precisely the gap this tactic feeds on.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Before your congregation files anything, close that gap yourself: get the parcel's zoning district, its permitted-use or legal-nonconforming status, and the ordinance section on accessory structures in writing from the planning office, and put the answers in the board minutes. If the ordinance says you need a variance, apply for the variance rather than hoping approval will cure it. Refuse to let a favorable staff conversation substitute for a document with a section number on it.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The contest was moved onto ground where ordinary parishioners have no competence at all: enlargement of a legal nonconforming use, arterial-versus-collector street classification, setback variances, and the meaning of "substantial burden" under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. Convictions about Marian devotion are not an answer to a street-classification argument, and the Kentucky Supreme Court's reasoning — that a smaller grotto might be buildable elsewhere on the tract — turned on land-use facts, not on faith.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Get the width before you need it. This month, read your municipality's zoning ordinance sections that cover your parcel and the Justice Department's plain-English statement on RLUIPA's land-use provisions, and have one trustee learn the actual procedure for a conditional use permit in your town. At a hearing, "I don't know — I will get that section number and come back" is stronger than an improvised answer, and bring a land-use attorney rather than only testimony about what the project means to you.
Rule 10
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
Whatever the neighbors intended, the effect on the Missionaries has been five years of attrition: approval in 2021, suit, a trial-court win, reversal on appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court in December 2025, certiorari granted October 1, 2026, and argument not expected until 2027 — with the grotto site still vacant. A small nonprofit board has carried legal costs across that whole span for a dome-sized structure. Delay alone can decide a project that money and patience cannot outlast.
Counter-Rule 10 · The Long Game
Plan in decades against a campaign built on attrition. Succession and endurance beat any single victory.
Plan in decades rather than in budget years. Put a named legal-reserve line in the annual budget now, keep one indexed file of permits, applications, hearing recordings and minutes so a change of pastor or board chair does not reset institutional memory, and name a second person who knows the property file as well as the first does. Decide in writing what the congregation will do if a project is held up three years, before anyone is tired.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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