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In 1999 our family decided to move to a country setting in order to practice cow protection. We found a historic house in rural Southwestern New York State in the Village of Angelica, where for over one hundred years Allegany County has celebrated its annual county fair (about 1 1/2 hours from Rochester and Buffalo).

This historic home in Angelica NY was situated across the street from a commercial beef cow and dairy goat farm. We assumed we could keep a couple of cows on our two and one-half acres; in fact one of the farms fields is adjacent to our property. When the village elders found out that we were Hindus and devotees of Krishna, they decided to enforce a hitherto unused Farm Animal Ordinance, which required a keeper of farm animals (our religious cows are pets!) to either have ten acres, OR receive a permit from the Village. We then made arrangements to board our pregnant milk cow with the farmers across the street ( where she ended up remaining for 19 months), while we struggled to get the Village to grant us a permit to bring our cow (and her twin calves) to reside on our own property. We felt the considerable community opposition to our presence in the neighborhood, and to our being granted a permit for keeping our cows. For reasons explained later, we did finally bring our cows to our property and kept them there and on 12 acres we had leased a few hundred feet away for 21 months. During that time we experienced significant harassment and the Village heaped charge after charge on us for violating the Farm Animal Law (but our cows are pets!) and we were convicted and fined. Not content with fining us, the Village soon sued for a permanent mandatory injunction, which was intended to force us and our cows out of the village.

In April of 2003, the injunction came on for trial before Judge Michael Nenno, a county judge from the next county who had volunteered to hear our case. On the first day of trial, the village's witnesses testified. After hearing their testimony, Judge Nenno said we could put on our witnesses and testify ourselves the following day. But the next day, when we arrived in court the Judge had a surprise for us. Instead of allowing the trial to continue with our testimony and that of our witnesses, Judge Nenno told the dumbfounded courtroom that he didn't need to hear our side of the case, that he had decided to grant the Village their injunction without hearing from us, banged down his gavel, and left the bench.

We kept the cows in the village until a temporary stay granted by the Appellate Division expired a few weeks later. The case is now on appeal to the NY Appellate Division. We have an attorney working on the appeal for just token fees, however, court costs for the appeal are expected to total several thousand dollars. Having struggled for four long years on our own, we are significantly stretched in every way and need support - morally and financially. We have been discriminated against, harassed and denied our religious freedom as well as due process in court. If it wasn’t a question of standing up for our principles, we would have long given up but as tired and as frustrated we are, we feel that we have come far enough and cannot rest until justice prevails.

See pictures of our home

Background

The Farm Animal Ordinance has been Applied in a Discriminatory
Manner against Religious Practice

Our family practices Bhakti Hinduism, and thus giving protection to cows is considered a sacred obligation. Our mission is to show a model of the Vedic agrarian village life as an alternative to the modern system of agriculture. We use our oxen to pull a cart, because this shows that the bull, Dharma, is just as useful as the cow and should never be slaughtered. The Village has repeatedly refused to grant us a permit for our cows, claiming that they are a health and safety risk, meanwhile they have issued similar permits for (and allow other village residents to own without a permit) goats, chickens, roosters, geese, sheep and of course the beef cows. This legal struggle has been going on for the past four years. The Village has used one excuse after another to suppress our religious practices of keeping cows and using oxen to pull a cart in the Village.

Government and Community Opposition to Cow Protection

The Village is somewhat of a tourist attraction with its quaint antique shops and its motto, “Angelica, A Town Where History Lives.” We felt it would be the perfect place to live and exercise cow protection; after all the practice of keeping a family cow and using ox carts for transportation is a part of America’s Cultural Heritage similar to the Amish lifestyle that exists in the village. The Village of Angelica did not welcome our idea of cow protection, and criminally prosecuted us for bringing our family cow and her calves to our property without a permit (the permit which the Village Board repeatedly declined to give us on baseless charges). We have been subjected to multiple court proceedings by the Village and have experienced reckless endangerment by hostile community members. While we yoke trained our ox calves to pull a wagon on a quiet rural road, we were charged at by a neighbor riding an ATV. Our family was endangered, in two other incidents as well, by men driving pickup trucks at us, once while we walked our cows to pasture, and once while we held a prayer vigil on September 11, 2001. Two of our family members were hit by rocks when our neighbor (a police officer) intentionally used his riding lawn mower to shoot clouds of dust and gravel towards our family on one of the few occasions when we held a public kirtan in town and again while we let our cow peacefully graze the front lawn.

Request for a Permit to Milk Family Cow - Get your Neighbors Permission
Soon after we moved to Angelica, in Jan 2000, we attended the monthly Village Board meeting, presenting a letter asking for a permit to bring our cow across the street from the beef farm where she was boarded, to our property for milking. We were told that we needed to get our neighbors to sign a permit form. We pointed out that this requirement was not part of the law, but we were told that these issues would have to be discussed with the Village Attorney.

The Village of Angelica’s Farm Animal Ordinance
The following is the text of the village ordinance. Nowhere does it state that consent and approval of all neighbors is a requirement for the permit.

Local Law # 2, Section 30.1-2
No farm animals such as cows, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, or geese shall hereafter be kept, maintained or harbored within the village of Angelica without obtaining a permit therefore from the Village Board. No such permission shall be granted unless the same are to be kept and maintained within the limitations of the owner’s property.

No permit shall be required if the owners property comprises ten (10) or more acres in the Village or is adjunct to a farm outside the Village comprising a total acreage of ten (10) or more acres.

Any person violating any provisions of this Article shall be liable to a penalty of not less than $3.00 nor more than $10.00 for each day.

Enforcement of this Ordinance on us is violating our First Amendment Rights of Freedom of Religion, Speech and Assembly

In April of 2001 we wrote a letter to the Village Attorney telling him that the Village Ordinance was causing our family a religious hardship by preventing us from keeping the cows on our own property. We also explained that the ordinance was restricting our freedom of speech and of assembly, because we wanted to practically demonstrate the principles of cow protection and ox working by inviting others to visit our cows and to participate in their care and that this was quite impossible when our cows were boarded at a neighbors’ farm. We received no reply.

In our case, the Village’s requirement that we get all of our neighbors’ approval was unfair and causing a religious hardship(and a burden on our freedom of speech and of assembly as well). Some of our neighbors did not mind if we kept the cows on our property, but a few households did object. It did not seem possible to us that they really objected to our cows, considering the fact that their property boarded the beef farm cows. We felt that their objections were based solely on religious discrimination. Their hostile actions that manifest shortly after this letter was sent, proved to us that our suspicions were correct.

Ox Cart Violates Village Ordinance:
After our cow gave birth to twin calves, we trained them to pull a small cart. Every day they pulled a load or two of manure from the beef farm where they were boarded, to our property where we composted it for our garden. Then they returned to the farm pulling a bale or two of hay for their nights feeding. On one such trip, a neighbor charged at us several times on his All Terrain Vehicle (ATV), attempting to spook the calves. He claimed that we were snubbing our nose at his refusal to give permission for a permit. The neighbor later complained to the farmer who was boarding our cows, “These people are practicing THEIR religion on YOUR land. They have to be stopped, and the Board and the Police are behind me on this!” The farmer then asked us to stop taking the ox cart off his property. The question of the legality of the ox cart and whether it was a violation of the ordinance for the oxen to come to our property only to deliver loads caused great community attention at the next Village Board meeting. We took this opportunity to make a second request for a permit.

The story in a local daily newspaper read as follows: [Mayor] Johnson said that although the Voiths have picked up a permit application, they have not followed through and are currently in violation of the town ordinance.

[Village Attorney] Brown told the board, “If a person doesn’t comply then the board can take civil action to get an injunction to make a person comply with the law.”

He went on to say that such injunctions are usually used in SPCA cases and that in those proceedings the animals are confiscated and placed in a foster care situation.

Johnson said that the board would continue to look into the matter to see what options it has.

At this time our cows were still boarded at the neighbors beef farm, so the supposed ‘violation’ referred to our ox cart. The Amish regularly drive through town with their horses, but our ox cart was disallowed. The Village has not allowed us to do what it allows members of other religious faiths to do, as of right. Shortly after this meeting, the farmer asked us to find another place to keep our cows. Having nowhere else to go, and being appalled at the outrageous statements of possible confiscation, we brought the cows to our own property.

Criteria Used by the Supreme Court to Decide First Amendment Cases

In cases of religious hardship, Courts have traditionally used a ‘compelling governmental interest test’ which places the burden upon a government to show a compelling reason for enforcing a law which substantially burdens an individual's religious practice. However, in recent years, the Court has expressed concern that if government is always required to prove a compelling governmental interest, religion could become a ‘law unto itself, wherein any practitioner of any faith could claim a religious hardship and thus force a municipality to use the least restrictive means of enforcing their law. In Employment Division vs. Smith, the Supreme Court outlined the situations where it was appropriate to use the compelling governmental interest test as follows:

“The only decisions in which we have held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action have involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech and of the press.” Smith 494 US

“Where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of religious hardship without compelling reason.” Ibid

Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA)

After the Supreme Court made its ruling on Employment Division v Smith many members of the legal community became concerned that this precedent would be used to narrowly define the scope of the First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Religious Exercise, by effectively discontinuing the use of the compelling governmental interest test in free exercise cases. Experts in the religious law field conducted studies to identify the instances in which government regulations most frequently interfered with religious practices. The studies confirmed two major problem areas where government regulations consistently posed a substantial burden on religious practices; and where there was substantial evidence that governments commonly used their regulations in a discriminatory way against religious practice. These instances involved 1) governmental regulations enforced arbitrarily upon persons in public Institutions, (for example: an institution’s unwilling to facilitate certain religious dietary restrictions) and 2) Municipal Land Use Regulations which were frequently used to exclude religious activities, (for example: by using zoning laws to exclude religious centers from locating in certain areas, or by preventing individuals from holding prayer meetings at their homes). In September of 2000, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, to show support for the cause of maintaining religious freedoms for all Americans.

(We cited RLUIPA in our letter to the village attorney, and in subsequent legal cases, as a defense against the Villages stance of unfairly using the Farm Animal Ordinance against our religious practice of keeping cows and using oxen for draught power).

The Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act: (RLUIPA)
No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person, assembly or institution-

(A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
Put a link here to- See the full text of RLUIPA

Further Findings by the United States Supreme Court -on Discrimination
If a state creates a mechanism [for exemptions], its refusal to extend an exemption to an instance of religious hardship suggests a discriminatory intent. Roy, 476 US at 708 quoted from Fraternal Order of Police v City of Newark 170 F. 3d 359; 1999 US App.

Our case has been plagued with discriminatory intent. The Village law is composed of exemptions and it allows farm animals by permit. The village allows cows and goats to be raised in the village for purposes of slaughter, or for pets, but not for religious purposes. Our case involves not only religious expression, but also freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. For the first two years, the only reason the Village gave as to why we were not allowed to keep the cows on our property was because we did not have the consent of all of our neighbors; hardly a compelling interest, when those neighbors live next-door to a beef farm.

Attorney Says - Neighbors Consent Requirement is Unconstitutional
We hired an attorney who specialized in Municipal and Civil Rights Law to help us get the board to address the Religious Hardship that the ordinance was causing us. Our attorney made it very clear that the neighbors consent requirement was an unconstitutional delegation of power. The law clearly states that permits are to be granted by the board, not by the neighbors. The new Village attorney agreed. Link- see the letter to the Village Board by Attorney Steve Clar of Syracuse NY

They come up with another excuse - Religious Cows are a Health Risk
After the ‘neighbors consent’ criterion was shown to be false, the board changed its strategy. Now they said we could not keep cows due to unspecified reasons of ‘Health and Safety.’ Note- there was no mention of health and safety for the first 2 years of our struggle with the Village. If cows are a risk to health and safety, why are they allowed in the village at the beef farm across the street? Why are cows, goats and other farm animals allowed by permit if they are a health risk? We were never found to be in violation of any health or safety codes.

How We Care For Our Religious Cows
We are caring for cows for religious purposes; the care we give to our cows exceeds that of ‘companion animals.’ and extends to considering them among our family members. Followers of the Hindu faith would never consider or treat cows as ’farm animals’ because that term connotes exploitation, abuse and ultimately slaughter. Our animals are the exact opposite of ‘farm animals’; rather they are tools for preaching against farm animal slaughter and thus their care is exemplary.

ACLU Compares Criminal Trial to Salem Witch Hunt
When we did bring our cows to our property to reside, the Village immediately responded by filling criminal charges against us for harboring farm animals without a permit. Our family was the first to ever apply for a permit, and the first to ever be prosecuted by the Village for harboring farm animals. The Village Justice found Stephen Guilty and ordered the removal of the cows. The NYCLU likened the trial to a Salem Witch Hunt or the Third Reich’s repression of religious minorities.

New York Civil Liberties Press Release

Lease of 12.5 Acres Not good enough- Why the Ordinance is Arbitrary and Unconstitutional
When we appealed the case to County Court, the Judge affirmed the conviction, but reversed the order to remove the cows, because the ordinance does not provide for removal of animals. The Judge also said, ‘Defendant is free to harbor farm animals within the village if he purchases or leases ten acres of land or obtains a permit to do so.’ We already had a verbal lease agreement for 12 ½ acres of land down the block where we had been grazing our cows. We formalized the lease, and that acreage, combined with the 2-½ acres at our residence, should have been enough to exempt us from the requirement for a permit. Our attempts to comply with the ordinance were not good enough for the Village. This time they contended that the leased land did not exempt us from the permit because it was not contiguous with our residence. The ordinance does not state that 10 acres needs to be contiguous, or on all one parcel. The law is vague and has no standards or definitions whatsoever. Courts have found that arbitrary laws that lend themselves to discrimination are unconstitutional.

Mandatory Injunction and Reckless Criminal Charges Filed
Once the Village realized that their law did not provide for removal of the animals, they filed a suit for a mandatory injunction forcing the removal of our cows. The Village also filed 42 more criminal charges against us, even though they knew about our leased land, exempting us from the permit.

New York State Supreme Court Judge says:
The Injunction Case Has Nothing to Do With Religion

During the bench trial for the injunction, the Supreme Court Judge refused to hear our First Amendment defense, or to allow the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act to be used as a defense, because the County Court Judge had already ruled on the ‘religion issue.’ Our attorney, Ross Scott, was threatened with sanctions if he mentioned one word about religion. Sanctions usually entail fines of up to $1000 and jail time.

Village uses Hate Crime Perpetrators as Witnesses to prove its Compelling Governmental Interest Test

The Village called the perpetrators of the hate crimes against our family as its main witnesses. Because our attorney was not allowed to mention the word religion, he was unable to discredit these witnesses by asking questions to bring to light the religiously biased motivation behind their opposition to our keeping cows.

American Hindu Family Denied Due Process

During trial we were not able to finish our testimony. The Judge did not allow us to finish testifying in our defense. He stated that the Village had failed to prove a nuisance and found that our practices were not considerably different than the Amish, yet he granted the injunction anyway. Technically, without proof of nuisance, there are no grounds for an injunction. The Judge also did not allow us to bring our Counter Suit against the Village for deprivation of our First Amendment Rights, because, he said, the issue of religion had been decided by the County Court in the appeal to the criminal case. However, Linda was not a party to the criminal case, and thus it was not appropriate to hold the findings of the County Court applicable to the injunction case which presented a totally different set of facts. In a brief filed to appeal the injunction our attorney stated, ‘the Voith’s appeal is meritorious…because of the egregious denial of Due Process by the trial Court...
Link See more- Attorney Ross Scott’s Legal Brief of May 27, 2003


Current Status

The Injunction Case is Under Appeal
Our attorney is currently preparing an appeal to the New York State Appellate Division, 4th Department that must be completed by June 21, 2004. In the last four plus years, we have fought almost single-handedly against this discrimination and bigotry and it has taken a significant toll on our resources and family well-being. Having come so far, we cannot give up now as a matter of principle. But we cannot do it alone any more. We request your support in our fight against the injustice and violations of our Federal Guaranteed Civil Rights. Please help us to fight for our First Amendment rights, our religious freedom and for the protection of cows, an important religious principle for members of the Hindu faith.