Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is pleased to see that the city of Knoxville has heeded its advice in shelving the sale of public land to a religious organization.

A concerned Knoxville resident reported that the city was considering a proposal to sell 12.7 acres of Chilhowee Park to the Emerald Youth Foundation, a religious organization. It’s an explicitly Christian nonprofit whose mission “is to raise up a large number of urban youth to love Jesus Christ and become effective leaders who help renew their communities.”

According to local news, the Emerald Youth Foundation approached the city in 2022 to pitch the sale, which was “a deviation from the city’s usual path on major public projects.” The city allegedly created the project proposal centered around the religious group’s vision, implying that the proposal process was not truly intended to create a fair playing field for potential bidders. The city also allowed Emerald Youth Foundation to lead the appraisal process for the land. The city agreed to let it purchase the park for less than $1 million, and it planned to build a $20 million to $30 million recreational facility on the land.

FFRF urged the city to nix the sale.

“In short, it appears the foundation’s proposed recreation center will be a facility dedicated to supporting its mission of converting Knoxville’s youth to Christianity, even if the facility will be open to nonchurch members,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon. “Regardless of any incidental secular benefits the project may produce, the city will violate both the U.S. Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution if it follows through with this public land sale that has clearly been orchestrated to specifically benefit this religious nonprofit in spite of community opposition.”

By selling public land to the Emerald Youth Foundation for below market value and creating a proposal process specifically aimed at it, the city showed clear government favoritism toward religion over nonreligion and Christianity over all others, FFRF emphasized in its letter. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause requires government neutrality between religions, and between religion and nonreligion, directly forbidding the government from subsidizing certain religious organizations or ministries or dispensing special financial benefits to them.

Thankfully, the pressure on the city has yielded constitutionally favorable results.

According to local news reporting, Councilwoman Debbie Helsley initially planned to introduce a measure to postpone the vote by eight weeks. However, the Knoxville City Council voted 5–4 to remove the Chilhowee Park land sale measure from its agenda, ending the discussion on the matter for the immediate future.

“The proposal to sell the land and disregard community input would have been an egregious endorsement of Christianity by the City Council,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Allowing for a quick, under-the-table deal to this religious organization would have been an unconscionable giveaway of valuable public land for the benefit of a Christian missionizing organization.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation serves as the nation’s largest association of freethinkers, with 42,000 members and several chapters across the country, including almost 500 members and a chapter in Tennessee, and works as a state/church watchdog to safeguard the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.

The post FFRF helps prevent Knoxville sweetheart land deal to religious group appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.