The Knights of Columbus council in Petersburg, Virginia, has filed a religious freedom lawsuit against the National Park Service, alleging that officials are standing in the way of a constitutionally protected religious act.
The conflict stems from the Knights’ request to host a Memorial Day worship service in Poplar Grove National Cemetery.
Park officials have denied that request for the past two years, saying that such an event must take place outside the cemetery in a designated “free speech zone,” as the Deseret News previously reported.
They’ve justified that decision with a 2022 policy on special events, which says that “demonstrations” that are likely to attract a crowd cannot take place in a national cemetery.
In a May 13 letter, the Knights outlined their issues with that response, arguing that the National Park Service’s event policy has been misapplied and that officials are trampling their religious freedom rights.
Now, the Knights have escalated the fight in hopes of being able to hold their Memorial Day Mass on Monday inside the cemetery.
In a newly filed legal motion, the Knights asked a federal district judge to grant them a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against park service officials and to allow them to move forward with their Memorial Day plans.
“Defendants’ treatment of the Knights is unreasonable, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. By prohibiting the Knights from exercising their religious convictions and expressing their patriotism by praying for and honoring the fallen through a Catholic mass held inside the cemetery, NPS is misapplying its own regulations, unlawfully infringing on the Knights’ First Amendment rights and violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” the motion says.
The National Park Service has not yet responded to the legal motion. In response to the May 13 letter, officials revoked an event permit granted to a different Knights of Columbus council for their own Memorial Day service.
Before last year’s permit denial, the Knights in Petersburg, Virginia, had held a service in the cemetery on Memorial Day nearly every year since at least the 1960s, as the Deseret News previously reported.
In a statement, Roger Byron, one of the attorneys representing the Knights said that “the National Park Service is way out of line.”
“Hopefully the court will grant the Knights the relief they need to keep this honorable tradition alive,” said Byron, senior counsel of First Liberty Institute.