Posted on 09/19/2011 11:04:53 AM PDT by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears
A southern California couple has been fined $300 dollars for holding Christian Bible study sessions in their home, and could face another $500 for each additional gathering.
City officials in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. say Chuck and Stephanie Fromm are in violation of municipal code 9-3.301, which prohibits religious, fraternal or non-profit organizations in residential neighborhoods without a permit. Stephanie hosts a Wednesday Bible study that draws about 20 attendees, and Chuck holds a Sunday service that gets about 50.
The Fromms appealed their citations but were denied and warned future sessions would carry heftier penalties. A statement from the Pacific Justice Institute, which is defending the couple in a lawsuit against the city, said Chuck Fromm was also told regular gatherings of three or more people require a conditional use permit, which can be costly and difficult to obtain.
How dare they tell us we cant have whatever we want in our home, Stephanie Fromm told the Capistrano Dispatch. We want to be able to use our home. Weve paid a lot and invested a lot in our home and backyard I should be able to be hospitable in my home.
According to the Dispatch, the Fromms live in a neighborhood with large homes and have a corral, barn, pool and huge back lawn on their property, so parking and noise arent a problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
You need to reconcile Scripture. What Peter and John stated is not in conflict with your quote. God's Word does NOT contradict itself.
I won't be here today. You'll have to figure it out for yourself.
True, but my reply is to the blanket statement made. Now, although that remark was made that noise was not an issue, if you think as a neighbor in a residential setting, the traffic associated with 20-30 vehicles several times a week is not an issue...
Back to the ordinance, if challenged, I think it would be tossed—it regulates content, and not time and place.
And you apparently, and conveniently, overlooked the part about “fraternal or non-profit”.
The point is, they don’t want commerical level (albeit non-profit) activity in a residential neighborhood.
Obviously to you this is an assault on your religious freedom.
Reasonable peiople can disagree on this, but if I were his neighbor I wouldn’t want the traffic either - religious or not.
If he want’s to run a group like that, why not find suitable space? No community center, church back room, etc?
Also so found this.
Capistrano Couple in Legal Battle for Hosting Bible Study in Home
The Fromms are 18-year residents of Capistrano, moving to their Capistrano home on Branding Iron Road from Laguna Niguel because they saw it as a good place to raise their childrenthey have fiveand run their business. Chuck Fromm is publisher of Worship Leader Magazine. Worship Leader is an international 20-year-old magazine for pastors, worship leaders, musicians, vocalists, sound and visual techs, technology stewards, artists and others.
But according to city records, a code-enforcement officer gave the Fromms a verbal warning about the meetings in May. Citations were issued in May and June, according to city records. San Juan Capistrano City Attorney Omar Sandoval said the city had not yet been served with a copy of the legal action, so he could not comment.
The Fromms citations say they violated section 9-3.301 of the Capistrano Municipal Code, which prohibits religious, fraternal or non-profit organizations in residential neighborhoods without a conditional-use permit. The footnote on the section says it Includes churches, temples, synagogues, monasteries, religious retreats, and other places of religious worship and other fraternal and community service organizations.
Not just a residential area, but a cul de sac street as well
Bible studies in homes cannot be prohibited in and of themselves under our Constitution. ...... Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears
You are correct, Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears.
In this case, however, whether it is a "Bible study", or a "Tuppweware Party", or an "Oprah Book Club", or a "Bird Watcher's Club" that monoplizes the neighborhood parking places with a mob of 50 people twice a week, on a regular schedule, it is illegal in a residential neighborhood.
This is not about a "private home activity". This is about a regularly scheduled, mass attendence activity that significantly impacts the neighbors and violates residential zoning.
If you give a small dinner party, every single night, that impacts nobody but you and your property, that is nobody's business but your own.
On the other hand, if you feed 50 people, all at once, twice a week, and those people's cars are depriving the neighborhood of available parking spaces, you are running an illegal food kitchen in a residential neighborhood.
I studied this in graduate studies, how the British government pulled this same crap, limiting how many could meet in a house to prohibit religious meetings, and taxing them also (i.e. requiring permits.) It is precisely one of the reasons we fought the Revolutionary War.
We fought the Revolutionary War over residential neighborhood parking issues?
So, the entitlement to disrupt a cul-de-sac, residential neighborhood's street access and parking is now a "racist" issue?
You actually went there?
Is the you, Jesse?
Someone else used the “property value” argument first, not me.
To deny that that was one of the most touted arguments used to keep neighborhoods segregated is ignoring history.
Will it now be used to keep neighborhoods agnostic or atheistic or apolitical?
What bootlicking tyranny! I would follow a different part of scripture and shake the dust off my feet...
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