Posted on 05/28/2009 1:30:17 PM PDT by wagglebee
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 notified the couple they were in violation of county regulations, should stop "religious assembly," and needed to apply for a "major use" permit to continue the gatherings -- a process that could cost several thousands dollars.
Jones, his wife, and their attorney, Dean Broyles, were interviewed on the Fox News Channel. Broyles says the couple's rights have been violated.
"The government may not prohibit the free exercise of religion," says the attorney. "And I believe that our Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw that here in the year 2009 that a pastor and his wife are being told that they can't have a simple Bible study in their own home."
The American Family Association has launched an online petition drive related to the incident, asking the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to immediately stop interfering with the rights of individuals to hold Bible studies in their homes.
Jones and his wife say they will continue to challenge the county's policy. About 15 people attend the weekly meetings.
I did a search, it didn’t come up. This is a different article, from a different source and it is far more comprehensive than the others. As for being posted “hundreds of times”, the actual number at the time I posted it would be four. There have been hundreds of threads posted about Sotomayor in the past few days, are you complaining about those too?
All that being said, if you think this thread should be pulled or locked, why don’t you just ping the moderators.
Fifteen or so people (two of whom presumably are the pastor and his wife) is no more people than would be at a cookout, dinner party or something similar. There is simply no way that it’s a traffic problem. You may be right about a neighbor, but it’s more likely that the neighbor didn’t like the fact that it was a Bible study and used something else as an excuse.
Let me know if there is any kind of public protest
Is there a legal defense fund set up for them? I think the Thomas More Legal group (can’t remember the full name) among others would be very interested in this case.
I will pony up for the fund. We need to start a counter attack in the culture war.
Not sarcasm but rather simply pointing out that Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Assembly are equally protected. Thus, a Christian Bible Study, a Muslim Koran Study and the gay and lesbian meetings all have the right to assemble.
your tracking me down like a dog, never was any good at speling
Jeepers. Thanks for the ping!
Our country would be a LOT better off if there were more home fellowships (regardless of size) devoted to worshipping the Lord and studying His word.
Holding a homeowner to the county established neighborhood zoning restrictions does not prohibit their free exercise of religion. The homeowners can freely exercise their religion in their own home, or the park or anywhere, and their own church is a couple miles away. Nobody is going to stop them from expressing their religion.
This is an issue of hosting regular weekly meetings at a home in a residential neighborhood, with sometimes dozens of vehicles parking throughout the adjoining streets. Clearly the compliance officer was trying to determine if this was a religious meeting or a random party or event. While the pastor say’s “no” neighbors have a problem with it, the fact is that somebody had to have called the county to report them.
This is simply an issue of getting a permit to use the property for such meetings. The permit would be necessary too for any other business or non-profit like Boy Scouts for Leukemia Society or the like.
The Major Use Permit establishes maximum occupancy and requires traffic mitigation in order to minimize the effect of egress/ingress on the neighborhood. Of course it requires studies and hearings and reports for the county board to set limits and approve the permit.
If the weekly bible-study drew 150 people to each meeting you would agree. So really it’s a matter of establishing the line; 12 people? 35? 150? The point of getting the permit is to assure the proper limits have been explored and approved.
In fact, this issue only relates to religion in a way which is the opposite of what everyone is assuming. Counties require major use permits in residential neighborhoods for any business or non-profit to establish regular meetings or land use which is not simply residential in nature.
We would actually have a constitutional problem here if the county were compelled to waive that restriction on this home BECAUSE of it’s religious nature.
You are missing the point. They are attempting to use zoning laws to prohibit the free exercise of religion. It is as simple as that. Zoning laws that are intended to be as bothersome and expensive as possible do not trump our guarantee to exercise our rights.
Also, according to you, ONE person as a regular guest in your house could conceivably violate the zoning ordinance.
Unless the Bible study was happening every night, thus effectively turning the home into a church. That doesn't appear to be the case here, where it was a Tuesday night study. The only other issue, besides parking which shouldn't really be a problem with a max of 15 cars, could potentially be noise. It *is* San Diego, where I think they can build houses less than a foot apart.
A "major use" permit is defined thusly: "The intent and purpose of a Major Use Permit is to provide for the accommodation of land uses with special site or design requirements, operating characteristics or potential adverse effects on surroundings, through review and where necessary, the imposition of special conditions of approval." (emphasis mine).
So, it's possible that if they were in a typical closely-packed suburban San Diego neighborhood, and were praying / praising at high volume, the neighbors could have filed a complaint.
No, ONE person would amount to a visitor and would not negatively impact traffic and parking in the neighborhood. As I said, there is a line. Is it 5 people? 25? 95? It depends on the specifics.
NOBODY would consider a single person, or a single automobile, showing up at a home each week, a “meeting” which required attention to the zoning restrictions.
The pastor says they “average” 15 people a week. He said the crowd sometimes is as low as 5 people but also said he recently had nearly 30.
If the pastor applies for a permit and then the county flat-out refuses to issue it and gives no reason or chance to mitigate - and most importantly, if there seem to be OTHER non-Bible-study regularly meetings of roughly the same size going on in the neighborhood - well, then you might have an argument.
If the zoning law enforcement is consistent, then you really can’t claim they are merely “using” the zoning laws to restrict religious expression.
Like I said, you would actually have a reverse-discrimination issue if the county allowed the pastor to waive the permit application process while enforcing the zoning for other non-religious groups.
The sequence of events developed this way.
"On April 10, 2009, Good Friday, a female county employee came to the Joneses' residence. The county employee appeared in the front yard and proceeded to take pictures of our clients' home," the letter said. "She noticed the Joneses' daughters in the front yard and asked to speak with their mother. Although she did not provide any paper work or identification, subsequent information obtained by the WCLP leads us to believe that the county employee who went to the Joneses' residence was Code Enforcement Officer Cherie Cham."
"Do you have a regular weekly meeting in your home? Do you sing? Do you say 'amen'?" the official reportedly asked. "Do you say, 'Praise the Lord'?"
The pastor's wife answered yes.
She says she was then told, however, that she must stop holding "religious assemblies" until she and her husband obtain a Major Use Permit from the county, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top tens of thousands of dollars.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=99455
“She says she was then told, however, that she must stop holding “religious assemblies” until she and her husband obtain a Major Use Permit from the county, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top tens of thousands of dollars.”
Note the first question was did they hold regular weekly meetings there.
It is absolutely true that to hold religious assemblies at a private home in a residential zone, which may impact traffic, noise, parking, sidewalks, etc., you need to apply for the permit.
Absolutely true. And if those same-size meetings were the boy scouts of america or the local meat-cutters union or any group which would similarly affect the neighborhood on a weekly basis, the rule would be exactly the same.
I think we’re paying too much attention to what the compliance officer supposedly said to the pastor’s wife. If she asked questions in order to determine that the nature of the meetings was “religious assemblies”, then so be it. The fact of the matter is that religious assemblies are one of the (many many) categories listed for which you need a Major Use Permit.
In my other comments I make clear that this is not a violation of anybody’s free exercise.
You seem to be dismissing the possibility that zoning restrictions for that neighborhood actually exist. The permit process is specifically for addressing potential zoning violations and setting guidelines for unconventional use such as regular religious assemblies at a private single-family residence.
You say there is “no way that it’s a traffic problem” and that 15 cars every Tuesday night is OK. Why not 50 cars?
Your statement is a subjective opinion, not an educated analysis of the zoning laws. To a neighbor there, maybe only 3 cars might be the limit. To the pastor, perhaps the opinion is that 35 cars is where he would draw the line.
The point is, determining a proper limit is EXACTLY the purpose of the permit process. People don’t buy homes in single-family neighborhoods expecting that the protections to their own safety and the quite enjoyment of their property is going to be judged subjectively by incensed Christians and political blogs. People know they are in a neighborhood zoned for residences, and that there is a process with the county for getting variances to that zoning.
By the way, getting a Major Use Permit in that neighborhood requires notice to all homes within 300 feet of the home in question, and public meetings. I would be pretty happy there was a process in place to protect me and my home if I happened to be in that neighborhood.
On the flip side, I would be PISSED if the county decided to arbitrarily waive the permit restriction just because the pastor insisted that since his meeting is a bible study it should be A-OK to bypass the zoning variance.
The official didn’t HAVE TO reference traffic issues. That’s what the Major Use Permit process is supposed to address, in addition to noise, signage, etc., even fire safety (you probably are not allowed to cram more than 50 or 80 people into a home according to the fire marshall - the process would set an upper limit to how many people may attend one of the bible studies at one time).
I can’t believe this happened! Were the neighbors whining about parking? Ridiculous and persecution..
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