Unlike the RFRA, which required religious accommodation in virtually all spheres of life, RLUIPA only applies to prisoner and land use cases.

Dep't of Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 883–85 (1990), the Supreme Court held that a substantial burden on religious exercise was subject to very strict scrutiny where the law "lent itself to individualized governmental assessment of the reasons for the relevant conduct."

In the 2005 case of Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709 (2005), five prisoners in Ohio – including a Wiccan, a Satanist, and a member of a racist, purportedly Christian, sect – successfully sought to apply the protections of the act to their religious practices.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, unanimously holding that RLUIPA was a permissible accommodation of religion justified by the fact that the government itself had severely burdened the prisoners' religious rights through the act of incarceration.

[citation needed] In 2008, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report entitled "Enforcing Religious Freedom in Prison.

"[4] In a unanimous opinion issued March 15, 2011, that reverses the three-judge panel's May 2010 ruling, a limited en banc panel of 11 judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that an Orange County courthouse lockup is an "institution" under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, meaning a Muslim woman who sued after being forced to remove her headscarf in front of strange men is entitled to the act's protections.

The law, passed by Congress in 2000, prohibits the government from imposing a "substantial burden" on prisoners' religious practices unless officials can show a compelling need for the restrictions.

[citation needed] In 2022, Chief Judge Diane S. Sykes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit invoked RLUIPA in ruling that the rights of a Muslim prisoner at Green Bay Correctional Institution were unlawfully violated when he was strip searched by a transgender male guard.

The passage of RLUIPA gave rise to increasing number of legal cases whereby (local) planning authorities are sued for violating the free exercise of religion.

The American Planning Association (APA), for example, opposed RLUIPA (and its predecessor, RFRA) from the outset, arguing that these statutes effectively change “the playing field in favor of religious institutions” and put local governments “in an untenable position.”[14] In 2005, however, the Supreme Court ruled, in Cutter v. Wilkinson, that RLUIPA is constitutional, at least as it applies to prisons.

Since the mid-2000s, therefore, the APA has been offering resources to local governments and practicing planners as to how to effectively navigate the renewed legal-religious landscape of the planning field.

[15] Litigation focusing on the term "land use regulation" occasionally asks courts to decide whether RLUIPA applies to eminent domain proceedings.

[19] A court may be more inclined to find that eminent domain falls within the scope of RLUIPA if it was authorized by a zoning ordinance or comprehensive plan.

After a revision to the O'Hare Modernization Project, Rest Haven's cemetery was no longer faced with condemnation and this church dropped out of the lawsuit.

The Court cited the case of Faith Temple Church v. Town of Brighton to support its position that "zoning and eminent domain are 'two distinct concepts' that involve land in 'very different ways'."

Cottonwood Christian Center filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the City of Cypress from taking its land through eminent domain.

As a result, Cypress initiated eminent domain proceedings to acquire the property under a zoning ordinance called the Los Alamitos Race Track and Golf Course Redevelopment Project (LART Plan).

RLUIPA's application to eminent domain was at issue in this case because Faith Temple argued that the recommendation in the Town's Comprehensive Plan was essentially a "zoning law."

The plaintiff-appellee in the action was the City and the defendant-appellant was First United Methodist Church as the fee owner of the Admiral Thomas condominium complex.

Using the Cottonwood case for support, First United argued that eminent domain is a "land use regulation" and that RLUIPA should be a defense to the City's action.