Free Republic

They praised the Lord by singing their hearts out and chanting prayers at packed services. But members of a congregation in north London have abandoned their church - because of a council noise ban. The Immanuel International Christian Centre was ordered to keep its amplified music and sermons quieter after a neighbour complained. But the church's pastor Dunni Odetoyinbo claimed Waltham Forest council had only told them to keep quiet so as not to offend the Muslim community. The church also argued the council had 'taken away its ability to praise God', and that congregation numbers had dwindled from 100...

Montclair might be one of New Jersey's more progressive communities, but even in a town known for its tolerance, a working fetish "dungeon" -- complete with a spanking bench, "interrogation cell" and stocks -- doesn't belong on the busy downtown strip. So says the township attorney in a decision that has bitterly disappointed Ed and Karen Dougherty, aka "Master Ed" and "slave Duchess," the owners of Dressing for Pleasure, a Bloomfield Avenue shop that sells fetish clothing and tools of the bondage-and-discipline trade, from flogs and paddles to masks and spiked collars. For years, the couple hosted discreet "play parties"...

Written by Jason Bellows on 29 July 2009 Marvin Heemeyer of Granby, Colorado was a profoundly frustrated muffler repair man. In the late 1990s–after years of protests, petitions, and town meetings–it became obvious to the 52-year-old that he was entwined in a gross miscarriage of justice. His business was ruined by some shady zoning changes, and Heemeyer contended that mayor and city council were corrupt. Even as he was forced to give up his legal fight and sell his land, he hatched one last plan to secretly retool his muffler shop to serve a single malevolent purpose: to construct a...

A Saudi-funded academy was granted a zoning exemption Monday that allows it to expand at its 34-acre Popes Head Road campus in Fairfax County, culminating a years-long campaign to enlarge the school at that location...The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, whose permission was required for the expansion, stressed Monday that the 6 to 4 decision was based on zoning questions, not on what happens in the school's classrooms. "The community will get an awful lot of development," said Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason). "I think [it] will improve the community." The academy, founded in 1984, has about 1,000 students in pre-kindergarten...

VIRGINIA BEACH Councilman Bill DeSteph has applied to the city for a permit to sell guns out of a Great Neck home he will be moving into later this summer. DeSteph, a gun collector, said he wants to expand his hobby into a business. If the City Council approves the permit, DeSteph said he will apply to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for a permit to be a licensed dealer. “Once you’re clear with city zoning, the federal requirements for dealers are the same out of your house or a storefront,” ATF inspector Michael Adkins said....

Does anyone know if this is legal? We just got a parking ticket for parking in the grass in our own yard. The ticket says "can not park on grass or unpaved area(even if your own yard). I swear to god this is what the ticket says and its a $50 ticket that doubles to $100 then doubles to $200 Does anyone know anything about this law????

APOLOGY IN SAN DIEGO IS NOT ENOUGH Words Eye View June 7, 2009 Dr. Greg Dixon Has the Conventicle Returned – Part II Well, the “Prayer Police” in San Diego couldn’t take it, anymore than the “Black Boots” of the State of Missouri could. They were the ones who withdrew their Domestic Terrorism report, with an apology, when they received an avalanche of criticism, after calling the followers of Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin and their followers “extremists” to be feared as militia types, who might endanger law enforcement officers or worse, in a report revealed this past March....

You may not have noticed, but Hollywood has: you’re miserable. No, really. According to Census Bureau numbers, roughly 75 percent of Americans live in suburbs. And, according to one of last year’s Golden Globe nominees for best picture, that’s eating away at us. “Our whole existence here [in the ’burbs] is based on this great premise that we’re special. That we’re superior to the whole thing,” declares the female lead in the movie Revolutionary Road. “But we’re not. We’re just like everyone else. We bought into the same, ridiculous delusion.” That “delusion,” as depicted in the film, is that a...

San Diego County officials agreed Wednesday to rescind a cease-and-desist order issued to a pastor holding a small Bible study in his home. In a letter to the pastor, the county’s chief administrative officer apologized for the incident involving a code enforcement officer who issued the order after reportedly asking the pastor’s wife inappropriately probing questions about the study. The letter informed Pastor David Jones and his legal counsel Dean Broyles, president of the Western Center for Law & Policy, an Alliance Defense Fund allied organization, that the order was wrongfully issued and that the county would conduct a thorough...

The Bartow County Planning Commission voted Monday to recommend denial of proposed changes to the zoning ordinance that targeted firing ranges. The unanimous vote came after a public hearing that lasted almost two hours in front of a standing-room-only crowd that spilled out from the hearing room into the hall. Now the proposed text amendment will go to Bartow County Commissioner Clarence Brown for a final decision at his scheduled meeting Wednesday. The proposed changes would not only impact new firing ranges, but those already in existence. Facilities would require a minimum lot size of 100 acres. Additionally, ranges would...

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed a controversial growth management bill that some say will stimulate the state's economy but others warn will increase urban sprawl. ___ Gov. Charlie Crist on Monday approved changes to Florida growth laws that supporters say will strengthen the economy and opponents predict will increase urban sprawl and traffic gridlock. The bill rewrites Florida's 25-year-old growth management law, principally by allowing developers in the most urban counties to add more housing developments without expanding roads and by allowing counties and cities to designate new urban areas that also would be exempt from certain road-building requirements. Sponsored...

David Jones, a pastor in National City, holds Bible study groups in his Bonita home. (Peggy Peattie / Union-Tribune) - Sweeping issues of religious freedom and governmental regulation are swirling around Pastor David Jones' house in rural Bonita, attracting attention from as far away as China and New Zealand. He says it all started with $220 in car damage. Jones and his wife, Mary, hold a weekly Bible study at their home that sometimes attracts more than 20 people, with occasional parking issues. Once, a car belonging to a neighbor's visitor got dinged. David Jones paid for the damage,...

Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a bible study....

A San Diego pastor says county officials have told him he needs a permit to host a weekly Bible study in his home. Pastor David Jones and his wife, Mary, were hosting the weekly study near their church, when they say they were visited by a county code enforcement officer. According to Dean Broyles, an attorney for the Joneses, the county official asked the pastor if they hosted a regular weekly meeting in their home, and if they prayed and said "Amen" and "Praise the Lord" at those meetings. After replying in the affirmative to those inquiries, a subsequent citation...

Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a bible study — unless they are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to San Diego County. "On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county." David Jones told FOX News. "We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a...

NICKTOWN — When she wakes from restless sleep in the middle of the night, Susan Miller thinks about the man who put her family out of their rural Blacklick Township farm. The Amish mother would like to talk to Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker, who ordered the house, barns and outbuildings padlocked because she and her husband John violated building codes and sewage regulations at their 49.5-acre homestead. "I sat up in bed the other night, and I was thinking that I feel bad he has to do this to us. I wanted to write him a letter to tell...

A San Diego pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a county official and warned they will face escalating fines if they continue to hold Bible studies in their home. The couple, whose names are being withheld until a demand letter can be filed on their behalf, told their attorney a county government employee knocked on their door on Good Friday, asking a litany of questions about their Tuesday night Bible studies, which are attended by approximately 15 people. "Do you have a regular weekly meeting in your home? Do you sing? Do you say 'amen'?" the official...

Surprise, Ariz., doesn't look very surprising. It might be anywhere in the suburban West. Home Depot and Wal-Mart rise like islands from an ocean of pavement, and late-model SUVs gleam in the midday sun. Homes with red-tiled roofs line up like stucco boxes on a giant supermarket shelf. There's little to distinguish this from the hundreds of square miles of housing developments that have sprouted around Las Vegas and San Diego. If it weren't for the palm trees, you could be in suburban Salt Lake City. But only Surprise has the Radiant Church. Inside this 55,000-square-foot behemoth, 50-inch plasma-screen televisions...

Beverly Anderson is mad as hell. She just started to get tickets for parking in her own driveway. That's right. The District of Columbia is ticketing people who park their cars in their own driveways. ---- So what does the law say? "Any area between the property line and the building restriction line shall be considered as private property set aside and treated as public space under the care and maintenance of the property owner." ----------- Basically what that means is most property owners in the District don't own the land between their front door and the sidewalk, but they...

Tim Clements was excited about getting his new business up and running. Several weeks ago, he put up an impressive sign on the gate of his 10-acre horse farm on remote Hampstead Drive, tucked away in a pastoral setting in southeast Hernando not far from the Pasco County line. He named the business the CJ Dude Ranch, combining his last name and that of David Jennings, co-owner of the property. "I just named it for us two dudes,'' he said. "Two guys on a farm with horses.'' Clements put the finishing touches on a new Web site, cjduderanch.com, that features...