Morningstar Ministries addresses discrimination lawsuit against York County

FORT MILL, SC (WBTV) - Morningstar Ministries says they’re ready to develop the old Heritage Grand Tower.

“We’re ready to go. We’ve got the engineering, we’ve got the architecture, we’ve got the business plan,” said Morningstar Ministries President Rick Joyner.

What Morningstar doesn’t have are the permits, permits they claim are being blocked by York county, and after emails surfaced as part of an existing lawsuit, they’ve now filed secondary suit citing religious discrimination.

“It became clear with the illumination of some emails and other communication with county leadership that they were never intending to let us finish that tower,” said Joyner.

The discrimination suit alleges that emails between York county employees compared Morningstar to the “old PTL” calling the church “scheming,” however Morningstar says their intentions have never been anything but honorable.

“We think it was very wrong, for them to judge us that way, and then to put the roadblocks,” said Joyner.

The building has been a point of contention for decades, and Morningstar claims they want to finish it once and for all, but they say they can’t do that without the county’s help.

“Our main goal is to get it done, that’s our main thing, we want to get that thing finished. We believe it’s a blight the way it sits, it’s not right that this should be drawn out the way this is,” said Joyner.

When we reached out to York County, a representative for the county said they could not comment on pending litigation.

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