(JTA) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill requiring homeowner associations to permit religious displays on residents’ doors, including mezuzahs.
According to the law, the religious item must be under 25 inches and remain in the doorway.
The law, signed June 17, was introduced after a Conservative Jewish couple was ordered to remove a mezuzah from the door of their rental apartment and then fined when they refused. The couple sued to be allowed to keep the mezuzah up and lost; they moved from the building when their lease was up. They then turned to Garnet Coleman, a state legislator from Houston, to help pass a bill to prevent the same thing from happening to others, the Houston Chronicle reported.
In 2008, Florida passed a similar bill.
