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NEW YORK, NEW YORK, August 25, 2004: HPI Notes: This lawsuit was previously reported (HPI August 17), but this announcement is from the Becket Fund itself, who is filing the suit on behalf of the temple and includes PDF links (go to “source”) to the actual court documents. This is an important case, and anyone involved with a Hindu temple in the US should read through the filings. The suit is quite extraordinary, for the fund is suing in Federal Court the original New York State judge in the case and a court-appointed referee.



The Becket Fund filed a federal lawsuit (PDF format, 167K) on August 4, 2004, on behalf of the Hindu Temple Society of North America. The suit argues that local courts are aiding the hostile takeover of the Temple in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.



Supreme Court Judge Joseph G. Golia and his appointed referee, Long Island lawyer Anthony J. Piacentini, are forcibly restructuring the governance of the Temple in response to the efforts of six dissidents who wish to control the Temple, some of whom rarely, if ever, worship there.



The federal lawsuit states that Judge Golia and Referee Piacentini have used their judicial offices to take control of the Temple, to prohibit it from engaging in certain forms of religious exercise and speech, and to impose a voting membership requirement, including the definition of who is a Hindu–all of which violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. If these orders are allowed to stand, they will have the effect of transferring complete control of the Temple — even who decides which priests will be hired and what gods will be worshipped — to new individuals. The complaint states that the court has “absolutely refused to provide any — much less a ‘full and fair’ opportunity to litigate Plaintiffs’ constitutional defenses to such actions.”



The complaint, filed in Brooklyn at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, asks the federal court to issue an injunction barring the local court from further activity that would jeopardize the rights of the Temple and its devotees. If successful, the federal suit would prevent the State from enforcing an unprecedented intrusion into the religious affairs of a faith community.



The Becket Fund also filed a memorandum (PDF format, 443K) in support of a motion for a preliminary injunction with the court “restraining Defendants from taking further action to violate the constitutionally protected autonomy of the Hindu Temple Society through an unconstitutional application of the New York Religious Corporations Law in the state judicial process.” The brief argues, “This extraordinary relief is warranted. The actions taken against the Plaintiffs are extreme. The potential destruction of the Temple’s religious polity is absolute. The bias of the parties involved is serious.”

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