Posted on 02/10/2018 10:37:21 PM PST by TBP
Tucked away in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, somewhere along the winding roads that hug Great Lakes shores, is an idyllic town named Bay View. For more than a century, generations of “Bay Viewers” have congregated here to share in summer activities.
What started out as a modest camping ground for Methodist families 140 years ago has quietly developed into a stunning vacation spot for people who can afford the upkeep of a second home. Streets named Moss, Fern and Maple are dotted with impeccably maintained century-old gingerbread cottages. Over the horizon, residents can watch lifelong friends sail their boats across the water.
But this paradise is not open to all.
In Bay View, only practicing Christians are allowed to buy houses, or even inherit them.
Prospective homeowners, according to a bylaw introduced in 1947 and strengthened in 1986, are required to produce evidence of their faith by providing among other things a letter from a Christian minister testifying to their active participation in a church.
Last summer, a dozen current and former resident members filed a federal lawsuit against the town, its ruling Bay View Association and a real estate company, claiming the Christian litmus test was illegal and unconstitutional.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
It is a homeowner community that’s been there forever. It was and is a collection of Methodist “cottages”, which are like 3 story 7 bedroom 4 bath almost century old home. It is encircled by Petoskey, my second hometown.
They have pink sidewalks!
I wouldn’t qualify to live there and that’s just fine with me: plenty of places to live in this country.
Small little community in the middle of no where, not bothering anyone, leave them alone. Sounds like they were more than willing to find a way to accomdate to only guy with an issue.
Shunning is practiced on active members of the community.
A dozen, FORMER AND CURRENT Residents? Hmmmmm...
Questions:
How did they obtain ownership of the homes in the firstplace? Did they purchase them and then decided to turn their backs on their religion. Or, did they inherit them and hated their family upbringing so much and those around them, that they want to destroy the place?
How much are the homes worth to buyers? Are Christian buyers willing to pay one price and an outsider, realizing that the place is probably pretty idyllic, willing to pay far more than what the Christians are willing to pay?
Are the Plaintiffs, so Left wing, or became so, that they want to destroy the place, like they do everything else?
Sounds like someplace I’d like to live.
Islamberg, NY
Actually he’s wrong. The only thing even remotely resembling a “Jewish- only “gates community”” anywhere near Mountain View would be the Moldaw residence at the Jewish community center in Palo Alto. It, like many retirement places, is operated by a church or synagogue or religious charity. There are hundreds of similar places run by the Catholic, episcopal, Methodist, and other churches. I’ve help people with Catholic, episcopal, and secular senior housing buildings. Christian Church Homes has 57 such residences and they’re just one operator of thousands. Moldaw, while built by the Palo Alto area Jewish community and on the campus of the jewish community center ( think: YMCA) - does not limit residency to one relugion - but certainly most people who’ve chosen it are elderly from the Palo Alto region’s jewish community. It offers Alzheimer’s care, skilled nursing care , assisted living services, on- site dining, and so forth. It’s just like maybe 100,000 other such residences - both religious- sponsored and not - all across America — very nice but definitely the kind of place I hope never to need. Especially the Alzheimer’s and nursing care parts, ha! ( the Alzheimer’s or memory care, as they call it, is why it has to have a gate, incidentally).
I know law officers don’t go to Muslim (or any other) no-go zones. My reply to you was to point out that a Christian-based community is unlikely to compare to such a thing. Why would you even try to make that comparison? Is Bay View a notorious hotbed of corrupt, violent people who only call themselves Christians?
How is it different from a “No Go Zone”? No one is suing to get in.
People can be funny. One Sunday afternoon a few years ago the husband of one of my wife’s friends and I were running a quick errand and he asked me. “How was church this morning?” I said, “OK, nothing unusual.” Since he started it I asked him what he considered himself to be, agnostic or atheist? I was shocked when he answered “Christian.” I said, “Really?” Not wanting to be rude I was careful in my tone when I asked, “Have you ever even been in a church?” I was not surprised at this answer, “No.”. So I ventured further, “So, on what basis do you consider yourself to be Christian?” He said, “Because I was born in a Christian country.” Seriously. He was not joking. He thought (and still thinks) that means he is Christian.
Oak Bluffs in the center of Martha’s Vineyard also started as a Methodist campground.Are we really going to destroy everything from our history due to liberal group think?
Ocean Grove in NJ was a similar community.
They lost a suit several years ago.
Ha! Some friends belong to a church with a strong dualistic theology, featuring a very active Satan fighting against the Creator - anyway, the point is they teach that the devil won’t abolish churches so much as rot them out from within ( thus, the need for constant vigilence in church lest the pastor or anyone try to water down their doctrines). They say to be especially wary of doctrines being rendered unimportant, sidelined, or just spiritualized into a practical meaninglessness —- rather than Satan actually trying to directly confront or destroy them. Result if not “on guard?” A church can become an empty shell of its former self. It’s like your friend!s thinking- he thinks he’s as much a Christian without church as those folks who are in it. Viz, he thinks there’s nothing in church of any value to him. Sadly, this is pretty accurate for many churches and synagogues in this modern age. I hope your friend happens to visit a “real” church someday, because if he just walks into any number of today’s secularized- liberal- progressive churches.... his perception ( that there’s nothing of value there) will only be reinforced.
They need a good real estate lawyer to write them some new covenants, because they are going to lose on civil rights grounds.
No Muslims. No Jews. No Buddhists or Hindus. No agnostics.
As a side note, Beaver Island was once ruled by a king.......LOL!
That's true because the only folks who use it as a vacation home in the winter are skiers or snowmobilers.....Winters up there are quite severe.
The community though might still be full of normal old school Christians, we will never know what type of Christians are in the community unless some freeper can dig up something in the news etc that says other wise.
More likely to get into the community you have to go before a board of people who already live there and they are probably normal conservative old school Christians, and probably some lesbian or gay couple that go to some liberal church attempted to buy into the community and were reject admission into the community because they deemed them as not being Christian and right off the bat a lawsuit was thrown at them for discrimination, that was probably more likely why the lawsuit was served.
Ok I reread the article and it says basically current residents brought up the lawsuit. So probably the current residents are already liberals gone way to far down the road to be call old school Christians.
When I was young I could never understand the phrase, “...and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against my church.” The image it conjured up for me were these large Medeival gates being battered pay the spire of this inverted building in the air. It just didn’t make sense. It was like an epiphany. My problem was I was seeing both objects as being “passive”, physical entities. A church ain’t a building and the Gates of Hell ain’t a place.
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