Posted on 05/28/2009 12:13:14 PM PDT by pepperdog
Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a bible study....
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Oh gosh it is not that deep. Sue the city/county and get on with life.
But “Koran study” would be OK. Or Satanism.
Will the ACLU step in and help these people like they would if it was a homoerotic study group?
I didn’t think so either.
They’re going to sue the hell out of the county and rightly so - a flagrant violation of Free Exercise.
The article indicates that the group averages 15 people. If they only meet once a week, then they are being somewhat inconsiderate of their neighbors, but surely the county is over reacting.
If the meetings occur more than once a week, then the county has good reason to put a stop to the zoning violation.
They should call it a book club.
Or are these lefties going to insist that the Bible isn’t a book?
It must be one of those “homeowner association votes” on who can do what in their own home, so may be a sticky-wicky.
Tell them you’re having orgies followed by invocations to Ma Gaia and a Global Warming Primer. All will be swell.
I suppose if they had a hundred people coming to their house several times a week this would make sense.
If the county does, publicise it far and wide, and sue them for infringement of religious freedoms under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
If it is the second, maybe the pastor can use a room in his church for it.
There must be more to the story. First of all who called? Who complained? The neighbors do not know what is going on in the home (unless invited). Someone at the Bible Study probably got “pissed” off at the group and called (someone). Were they taking donations? Too many questions unanswered. If this is the straight story then it is tragic, but as we know nothing is ever exactly as a newpaper article claims. The story has no “guts”.
I'm assuming that you're only putting on and trying to mockingly sound as if you were a complete lunatic, but on the off chance that you're not, exactly what "zoning violation" do you think is being violated by a private homeowning citizen having friends over to their house? And how does it differ from, hypothetically, these peoples' next-door neighbours having a couple of dozen people over for a Halloween party?
It has been like this for the last 15 years. It is only going to get worse. Call Thomas More and crack’em in the jaw. Next target.
I believe the problem is related to parking. If you have ten to fifteen people show up on a regular basis, the neighbors are bound to get annoyed sooner or later.
There are First and Fourth Amendment rights at issue here. People have freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. The problem as I see it though, is one of using good judgment.
If fifteen people are showing up, it’s probably safe to say eight to ten cars are being parked out front.
It would be far better if the meetings could be rotated at different homes. It would reduce the impact on one neighborhood. And if ten to fifteen people are showing up, perhaps it would be better to hold it at one of the small rooms at the church. This guy is the pastor after all.
I’m sure these are good people, and I wish them well. I still think sometimes well meaning people can do things that bother others, and I think they should be understanding of that.
If one of our neighbors had eight to ten cars out front of our homes once per week, I wouldn’t particularly like it. If it was once every other month, I couldn’t care less.
Oh contrar, it’s some ‘city official wanting them to get a permit’ ...and 80% of churches in America have home bible studies now...it’s absurd, and against First Amendment rights. How ridiculous we have become.
Hypothetical: OKAY, I say CA is no longer a sovreign state if they take Bailout money, and therefore have no Sen or Reps in Congress, and have been reduced to a territory and therefore have no right to incorporate any cities or towns, so every law made in every jurisdiction of CA is bogus. Now Mexico owns CA, and it’s someone else’s problem.
If they met TWICE EVERY FREAKING DAY they are still wholly and completely protected under the Constitution.
How Flipping STUPID is this town council?
But 48 illegals from Mayheco can cram into an apartment - as long as there’s no bibles involved!!
I’m serious.
Having friends and family over on Sundays is one thing, but if they are having a couple dozen people over several times a week for Bible study, then the county may have a case.
Residential areas aren’t suitable for regular public gatherings, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other neighbors.
They would be better off finding a public room they could rent for their purposes.
The adolescent predisposition that too many FReepers wake up with.
If right is on our side...why do so many get bent outta shape? Just go beat them and lets party.
Follow the money, baby.
I heard this from someone last week, but didn’t believe it. Some investigation into the validity of their claims needs to take place. It’s interesting that the department for whom the official works was not specified. San Diego is fairly conservative.
If this is a valid story, then I’d be willing to drive to SD to protest.
No doubt ACORN is purchasing barbed wire for re-education camps to deal with pesky Christians.
There are First and Fourth Amendment rights at issue here. People have freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. The problem as I see it though, is one of using good judgment.
If fifteen people are showing up, it’s probably safe to say eight to ten cars are being parked out front.
If that many people are showing up at their Bible study group, why don't they rotate among members' homes? That way, they would only host a meeting every two to three months.
Do you really think parking is really the issue? If they were holding fund raisers for left wing causes every week in their home, do you think the county would still crack down on them?
Then by your own standards, the Joneses are A-okay, since, as the news reports state, this is a weekly Bible study, meaning it happens once a week, not several times a week.
I’ve been in Bible studies off and on for years and years and never heard of one that was more than once a week. I could be wrong but I doubt it.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.
Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"
Yeah, really sounds like a parking problem. /s
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-PJ
Having read the story to see if the headline was misleading by omission, and having found no such “complicating circumstances”, it appears we have here a blatant violation of Constitutional rights.
If they want to have a group over and not be harassed, all they have to do is call it a jihadi study group and they’ll be left alone.
We have a weekly one at our house.
We only have 9 attending....
..but another one in a different neighborhood has more attending and they do dinner and prayer (just like the story)
So what kind of Gestapo ruling will be used to determine whether the folks walking into a home are there to share just a meal.
...or if they pray afterwards?
What indeed is happening to our country?
What about the homes that have weekly guests for Bunco and beer.....will they be subject to fines/& or arrest too?
Or is just the Bible groups?
Tell me about it, those darn bible studies. They keep me up all night with their loud music, and wild parties. When I ask them to keep it down they start shouting bible verses at me, MAN they're so inconsiderate.
Seriously?
Fifteen people. Let's be generous and say they carpool bit, so seven cars. Once a week. Sorry, but I'm afraid I'd be a bit upset if any of MY neighbors had a weekly "thing" that involved trying to shoehorn seven cars (and it's probably a closer to fourteen) into the limited area in our RURAL cluster of homes. The person who suggested rotation among the groups homes is right on target. That way, any particular neighborhood "feels the pain" only a few times a year.
indeed, the “emanation” that promotes anti-Judeo-christian morality, and the “penumbra” that calls for the pre-birth MURDER of the less-fortunate.
How dare these TERRORISTS exercise their G_d-given rights to be themselves, and exercise their FAITH!
Instead of a 15 person weekly bible study, what if they want to have 15 people over once a week for a party? Have a keg of beer and a cookout? From a zoning/land use perspective, what’s the difference?
I’ll bet the weekly party is a permitted use but to say that the religious use is prohibited is clearly discriminatory against a religious practice.
The ordinance is unconstitutional.
oh brother... they meet once a week... it's not like they're having a keg party every Friday night with 100 people showing up...
gosh, there must be 100's of families in our town that have weekly Bible studies in their homes... there are at least 20 in one church we attended up until last year, and we were one of them...
First they came for the smokers, and I said nothing ping.
How does this couple feel about the smoking ban imposed upon other private property owners?
HIDEOUS . . . TO THE MAX
I'm pretty sure that parking isn't the problem here.
Per the other, local news story I linked above, the whole problem started when one of the Bible study visitors hit a car belonging to someone visiting a neighbour while leaving the study.
The stories have noted that the Joneses have been holding these weekly Bible studies for five years. What that means is that nobody on their block has had enough of a problem with this to call the cops, until a VISITOR to one of the neighbours decided to get their feathers in a ruffle. Granted, nobody likes to have their car hit, but frankly, you can get your car hit anywhere, at any time, regardless of traffic density, for any number of reasons.
My suspicion is that the visitor to the neighbour was someone already unsympathetic to a home Bible study and decided to make trouble, using the accident as an excuse. They could've been an atheist who thought "I'll show them blankety-blank Christians", or a Catholic who thought "I'll show them blankety-blank Prods", or whatever.
Then, the county's mental revenue-generation wheels started a-turning, and they figured that if they could coerce the Joneses into getting a "major use permit", well, that's another several thousand dollars that could go towards building that new Rec Centre they've always wanted. The fact that the county wants money and a "permit", and upon getting these would ostensibly allow the Joneses to keep doing exactly what they're doing now, with the same amount of traffic being generated as before, suggests that traffic is not really at issue here.
YUP. NO DOUBT.
Especially in the privacy of their own homes.
-PJ
It seems reasonable to me, that the county had to become aware of this in some manner other than casual observation. The only reasonable manner to my way of thinking, would be that someone complained about the parking, or perhaps noise.
We can attribute it to someone not liking the prayer meeting themselves, but I don’t think that’s a given. It might be that there was a rather boisterous amount of “praise” or singing going on, and perhaps a neighbor complained about that.
I can see ways that this could be quite anti-social, with no intention whatsoever to be. I would urge the group to do some soul searching, and do the right thing.
As Christians we should defend our rights. On the other hand, we have an even higher calling to do what is right first.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.