[wbill]

These generally tend to be made up of the irreligious, if not always or necessarily atheists, types

I must be the exception to the rule.

Setting religion aside, if my next-door neighbor was having 20-50 people over to his house on a twice-weekly basis for any reason, I'd likely not be very happy with him. Just dealing with the added traffic would be a problem. Zoning rules generally exist for a purpose. As a previous poster noted, there's a reason why you can't open a Starbucks in your garage.

I've no knowledge of the situation beyond what I've read here, but it sounds to me like a problem caused by two (maybe more) hard-headed neighbors and complicated by a bunch of empty headed bureaucrats. Seems that a simple solution would be for this religious service to meet at a public place (church? town hall? library? public park?) and call it "resolved".

That having been said, the law in question specifically mentioning "religion" needs to be changed. That's a problem, no doubt.

[AppyPappy]

Better yet, what if a college fraternity moves into the house next to the “home church”. I wonder what the owners of the home church will do?

“Hey there are zoning decrees against fraternal meetings here”.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I've no knowledge of the situation beyond what I've read here, but it sounds to me like a problem caused by two (maybe more) hard-headed neighbors and complicated by a bunch of empty headed bureaucrats. Seems that a simple solution would be for this religious service to meet at a public place (church? town hall? library? public park?) and call it "resolved".

That probably would be the best resolution all around. if they want to be a church so badly, then let them just start one, find a storefront, etc.