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.”
Kinda sorta doesn’t matter in the least what the intent is.
It’s the effect. If the effect of a law or code is a suppression or diminution of a Constitutionally guaranteed right, then it’s (the law) is in jeopardy.
And in this case, since the codes specifically mention religious activities, it’s a no brainer.
And ALL ARGUMENTS about Hells Angels meetings or rock concerts or hog farms, those are just smoke screens, as the court will look at ACTUAL CONTROVERSY, not hypotheticals or “what ifs”.