Source: The Boston Globe
On January 13, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on a dispute before the state Supreme Judicial Court between a group of Mormons and some neighbors of the Mormon Temple in Belmont. A lawyer for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, "that the design of the temple was inspired by divine revelation to the church's president, Gordon B. Hinckley, who Mormons revere as a prophet...But four neighbors asked the justices to uphold a Superior Court judge's ruling that the steeple is not a matter of religious doctrine and therefore the Mormons are not entitled to construct it...The dispute, which pits religious freedom against land-use regulations, has become an important test of the Dover Amendment, a controversial 50-year-old state law that grants religious and educational institutions broad exemptions from local zoning regulations." Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall "clearly didn't buy the argument that the courts could decide whether a part of a religious building is doctrinally necessary."