Feeding homeless feeds faith, suit says

A man filing the suit says a city law preventing such efforts denies his religion.

By PAUL PINKHAM, The Times-Union

If Jesus came to Jacksonville to feed the masses, he would need a city permit to hand out all those miraculous loaves and fishes.

A University of North Florida associate professor hopes to change that with a religious freedom lawsuit he filed Friday after he was charged with violating a city ordinance when he fed homeless people on church property.

Though the charges eventually were dropped, Michael J. Herkov said it was important to challenge the ordinance so a basic tenet of his Christian faith could continue to be carried out by him and others.

"If I didn't do something, it would have prevented what I believe to be a Christian ministry," Herkov, a psychologist, said Tuesday.

Herkov isn't asking for a large monetary judgment.

Instead, he wants U.S. District Judge Henry Adams to enjoin the city from enforcing the ordinance and eventually find it unconstitutional on grounds that it violated his First Amendment right to practice his religion.

City Assistant General Counsel Ernst Mueller, who received the lawsuit Tuesday morning, said the ordinance is designed to require sanitation and toilet facilities where food is distributed and to protect the homeless population from spoiled food.

"Interfering with religious freedom was surely not anybody's intent," Mueller said.

Herkov and other members of the Christian Homeless Ministry were providing food and drink to homeless people in the parking lot of Historic Mount Zion AME church on Beaver Street in August when a police officer cited him for violating the ordinance. Even though they had the pastor's permission, Herkov faced a maximum $100 fine and 60 days in jail before the State Attorney's Office dropped the case in October.

The ministry is a cooperative effort of Mount Zion, St. Joseph's Catholic Church and St. Justin Martyr Orthodox Church, where Herkov was church council president.

Herkov said he was hesitant to sue after his case was dropped but felt he had no choice if he wanted the ministry to continue.

"There are a lot of people who said, 'We aren't coming anymore because we don't want trouble with the law'. " Herkov said he told the officer he didn't think the group needed a permit because they were on church property, but the officer told him ordinance applies to both private and public property.

Herkov's attorney, Scott Fortune, said the law is so broadly worded that it could be construed to prevent anyone in Jacksonville from giving someone else a cup of coffee or serving a meal at home without a permit.

Fortune said federal judges in other states have sided with the homeless and those feeding or sheltering them in a handful of similar cases around the country dating back to 1994.

Mathew Staver, president and founder of the Liberty Counsel, said he has handled similar cases for other religious groups, and the courts have found a clear constitutional right to carry out church ministries, such as feeding homeless people. Liberty Counsel is a Christian legal advocacy organization based in Orlando.

But Mueller said the case balances a valid religious interest against the city's equally valid interest in health and sanitation.

"You don't want somebody just driving in and setting up shop and then disappearing and somebody getting food poisoning," he said.