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To: Antoninus
"Uh, I think you have a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how our system of government works. The local community DOES have rights above the individual based on community norms. For example, if I lived next door to you and opened a sewage treatment plant in my back yard, are you telling me that you and the rest of our neighbors would have no recourse." This is incorrect on two counts. Firstly, If you build a sewage plant in your backyard, that is a zoning issue. Also the smell would affect the neighbors, and these people are out in the middle of the woods and you have to specifically go there to view their activities. Secondly this is not simply a private property issue. This is a freedom of religion issue. These people are practicing their religion, no matter how strange it may seem to you and I. The town is attempting to shut the campground strictly on the basis of the towns disdain for the form of religion that is practiced there, not only is that unconstitutional but you as a christian should be vehemently opposed to such an action.

Remember what you allow the government or the town in this case to do, may be visited back upon you. Supposing a liberal town in Massachusetts, decides not to issue a building permit to a conservative church based strictly on the fact that a majority of the townspeople are liberals. Does the town have that right? If the church has all the necessary legal paperwork, documentation and funding to build the church and has purchased the land with it's own funds?? If you as a christian allow this to happen, be careful you might be next.

480 posted on 11/29/2001 8:15:04 AM PST by All-American Medic
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To: All-American Medic
Supposing a liberal town in Massachusetts, decides not to issue a building permit to a conservative church based strictly on the fact that a majority of the townspeople are liberals. Does the town have that right?

Actually, I'm from Massachusetts, and that pretty much happenend in my old hometown. A derivative of it also happened in Belmont, home town of former GOP Senatorial candidate Mitt Romney, whose fellow townsmen were all up in arms when Mitt built a beautiful Mormon temple and wanted to put a big gold tower/steeple/whatever on it. In both instances the rights of the different church groups were upheld over the objections of the communities involved---the objections, of course, cloaked in zoning law issues.

483 posted on 11/29/2001 8:25:06 AM PST by Hemingway's Ghost
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