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Florida city wages soviet-style crackdown on churches (Gay Mafia)
FOXNews.com ^ | March 5, 2015 | Todd Starnes

Posted on 03/06/2015 7:25:29 AM PST by hoagy62

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Pastor Olive told me he tried to convey to Amoroso that the church’s message is ‘Love God, Love People.’

“Our message to the gay community is the same as it is to the straight community,” he said.

The commissioner, Olive said, did not seem to appreciate his message.

“He pointed at me and said, ‘Listen, you better not have a church down there,” Olive told me.

By the strangest of coincidences, a code enforcement officer showed up for a Sunday service on Feb. 8. He was wearing a hoodie and was armed with a concealed video camera, according to the letter Liberty Counsel sent to the city.

It’s pretty shocking stuff for a city that prides itself on being a tolerant, multicultural city. But as we all know – tolerance and diversity do not extend to Christians.

“It was pretty shocking,” Pastor Olive said. “We had no prior warning.”

The following Sunday a city employee showed up again and told the church it had one week to vacate the building. They were accused of operating a church in a business rental property without a Lake Worth business license.

***snip***

William Waters, the city’s community sustainability director, told me they have nothing against the church – they were simply responding to a complaint.

(My note...Gee, I wonder WHO complained?)

“We had a complaint that a gathering of people was taking place there in the form of a church,” he said. “We investigated that and determined that, yes, there were people gathered there.”

***snip***

“We have to treat everybody the same,” Waters said. “We couldn’t give preferential treatment to churches versus other businesses.”

And in the city’s opinion, a church is, in fact, a business – just like grocery store, a Waffle House or an adult novelty shop.

***snip***

Waters said any church that refuses to comply could be shut down by the fire department.

“There’s a variety of things that could happen if you don’t comply with the use and occupancy requirement,” he said.

As for Pastor Olive – his church will no longer meet in its church-owned coffee house. Instead, it is taking its congregation “underground” until the issue is resolved.

“We just want to urge the city – don’t allow God and our faith to be zoned out of downtown,” the pastor said.

1 posted on 03/06/2015 7:25:29 AM PST by hoagy62
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To: hoagy62

Any coffee clatch can now parade as a “church”, deserving of special privilege?

Somehow, speaking for myself, I bet there is more to this sob story.


2 posted on 03/06/2015 7:38:24 AM PST by RitaOK ( VIVA CRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming)
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To: hoagy62

Churches like to skirt the law and for most, I don’t have sympathy.


3 posted on 03/06/2015 7:41:52 AM PST by DonaldC (A nation cannot stand in the absence of religious principle.)
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To: hoagy62
it is taking its congregation “underground” until the issue is resolved.

Back to the catacombs.

4 posted on 03/06/2015 7:42:20 AM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: RitaOK
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In your opinion, does the first amendment protect rights, or does it regulate "special privileges"?

5 posted on 03/06/2015 7:45:45 AM PST by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: DonaldC
Do you think churches should be licensed by the government?
6 posted on 03/06/2015 7:49:35 AM PST by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: RitaOK

...and yes, there is more to it. The city of Lake Worth recently enacted a licensing requirement for churches.


7 posted on 03/06/2015 7:51:15 AM PST by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: hoagy62
William Waters, the city’s community sustainability director,

Exhibit A for "waste of taxpayer dollars."

I would love to see the job description for this position.

8 posted on 03/06/2015 7:52:31 AM PST by Disambiguator
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To: WayneS

Satan & the faggies win yet another one.


9 posted on 03/06/2015 7:53:32 AM PST by elcid1970 ("I am a radicalized infidel. My bullets are dipped in pig grease.")
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To: hoagy62
I walked back to the Coffee Bar and was able to visualize, in my opinion what appeared to be a ministry in progress,” he wrote in the report.

"One-Adam-12: Ministry in progress at downtown coffee shop. See the man in the hoodie..."

10 posted on 03/06/2015 7:54:55 AM PST by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: hoagy62

Gay Mafia? What would Bishop Peter Paul Jesep say?


11 posted on 03/06/2015 7:55:46 AM PST by MSF BU (Support the troops: Join Them.)
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To: elcid1970

the bad guys win this round and it’s a bout. Lots of time to crush our enemies


12 posted on 03/06/2015 7:56:15 AM PST by max americana (fired liberals in our company last election, and I laughed while they cried (true story))
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To: WayneS

Unconstitutional.


13 posted on 03/06/2015 7:56:38 AM PST by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing consequences of poor moral choices among everybody)
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To: DonaldC
Churches like to skirt the law and for most, I don’t have sympathy.

Churches are subject to a higher law. Municipalities should just butt out! Freedom of religion as protected by the constitution affords an elevated right to assemble and worship without being encumbered by petty rules and regulations. Churches have rights which businesses do not enjoy.

14 posted on 03/06/2015 7:59:00 AM PST by Sparticus (Tar and feathers for the next dumb@ss Republican that uses the word bipartisanship.)
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To: fuzzylogic

Under the Constitution I am familiar with there is no question that licensing churches is unconstitutional.


15 posted on 03/06/2015 8:02:17 AM PST by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: hoagy62

why didn’t they make it a private club?


16 posted on 03/06/2015 8:03:50 AM PST by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
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To: hoagy62

Licensing of churches and preachers has an ugly history in America; probably no uglier in any Colony than the persecutions that were perpetrated in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

As a young Christian lawyer, Patrick Henry rode in to Culpeper, Virginia in March of 1775, where he was witness to the brutal public flogging of a Baptist preacher. Tied to a whipping post in the middle of the town square, the preacher’s back was laid bloody and bare, with the bones of his ribs showing. He had been scourged mercilessly with a leather whip laced with metal.

The preacher’s only crime was that he had refused to take a license from the British Crown (Church of England). Three days later, the man was again flogged, this me to death. And he was not the only preacher who suffered this fate.

This incident is was one of the motivations for Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech. This incident, and others like it, were also the primary reasons for the strong protections of religious liberties written in to the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, which itself was the model for the Bill of Rights added to the United States Constitution.


17 posted on 03/06/2015 8:19:39 AM PST by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: DonaldC

so give us an example of the laws churches like to skirt.


18 posted on 03/06/2015 8:25:28 AM PST by armydawg505
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To: hoagy62

Religious liberty for any church or person who agrees with Emperor Obama’s government.


19 posted on 03/06/2015 8:27:10 AM PST by armydawg505
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To: armydawg505

It is all about regulations and money tied to a business tax. If in Florida, write your congresscritter and push for deregulation of businesses.


20 posted on 03/06/2015 8:35:22 AM PST by rstrahan
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