I agree with that, and I am pissed at the current state of "free exercise" jurisprudence, e.g., prayer in the schools.
My general point in this thread is that the issue can be viewed as land use, and at some point, most people (but not you) will agree that it's okay, even constitutional, to have zoning so the residential communities retain their residential character, and aren't changed by the presence of too many establishments creating traffic, thereby changing the character of the neighborhood. Just put the church a mile or two "over there," and most everybody is okay with that restriction.
As to the precise case in hand, I don't know enough about the character of the neighborhood to have any sense of the change attributable to the described twice-weekly meeting.
Maybe they can rotate the gathering to the 10-20 households that now gather at Fromm's. Or relocate to somebody else's house.
>>My general point in this thread is that the issue can be viewed as land use, and at some point, most people (but not you) will agree that it’s okay, even constitutional, to have zoning so the residential communities retain their residential character, and aren’t changed by the presence of too many establishments creating traffic, thereby changing the character of the neighborhood.<<
Let’s take “religious liberty” out of the equation for a moment (even though we can’t).
These people are specifically targeted, why? Because of their number? No, that is no even mentioned in the statute.
Because of parking, or noise? No, certainly those are covered in other statutes.
They are TARGETED because of what they are DISCUSSING on their own private property (the Bible).
In other words, they could get together to watch the Superbowl, but not discuss religion. WHAT???
The government is regulating their speech and their thoughts and their communication.
That is NOT America.
Land use and zoning issues are treacherously insidious, and in California have become an outrageous impediment to liberty. This is a particularly good example, because it’s both clear and simple enough that everyone can understand the situation, and see both sides of this issue.
The problem is that one neighbor is using his house for an activity that the other neighbors think is overly intensive. One can see their point: if you’ve worked hard and acquired the means to live in a nice quiet residential area, well, you’d probably like it nice and quiet. The problem is that allowing yourself to go down that regulatory road really is a slippery slope: it’s a series of tiny steps from that to “conditional” use permits, CEQUA studies, EIRS — the whole gamut of “discretionary” findings that make it impossible to predict government action, or even it’s reach. Hayek developed this reasoning better that I could ever hope to relate in a posting here, but IMHO, it’s a big deal.
Even worse, this is where you get otherwise solid conservatives to buy into the liberal regime of making everyone ask for permission for...well, practically everything. You get liberal idiots like Anthony Portantino being elected from a Republican stronghold like La Canada here in LA county.
If parking is the issue, then fine, restrict parking. If noise is the issue, then fine, deal with the noise. But restrictive land use policies? No thanks.