>>They simply are telling them that with that many people gathering, to do it elsewhere.<<
Wrong. The statute does not pertain to the number in attendance, it specifically prohibits the *content* (religious speech) without a permit.
The main problem I have with it is they are SPECIFICALLY regulating religious speech. What business is it of the government’s to determine what can or cannot be SAID, or what literature can be distributed in someone’s home?
In other words, there is no regulation of people throwing a keg party or a Superbowl party, or having fifty friends a week over.
But “religious groups” are specifically mentioned.
Look, if the intent of the statute is really to regulate religious speech... then I think everyone on FR agrees with you. It’s absurd and has to be voided.
But I don’t think that was the intent; I agree with the poster who said the aim is to regulate ongoing constant large gatherings in residential neighborhoods.
And like I said before in an earlier post, I have experience with this in my neighborhood. Four miles away, a church/synagogue/mosque (I won’t say which, because it doesn’t matter) is operating out of a house on a cul-de-sac. Everyone else’s lives have been made miserable by the traffic, lack of parking, noise... all the problems associated with operating something that isn’t a single-family home in a neighborhood of single-family homes.
Does it matter that the neighbors bought there and not downtown so they didn’t have to live next door to a business? Do you think the people on either side of that church/synagogue/mosque can ever sell their homes for a reasonable price? Their property was in effect confiscated. How is that equality before the law?
There is nothing wrong or even un-Christian about zoning boarding houses, drug offender halfway houses, sex offender halfway houses, perpetual garage sales, or — yes — even CHURCHES out of single-family home neighborhoods. It’s called “self-governance.”