Ever wonder how far the bureaucrats that run local government can go? Apparently, under the aegis of zoning and land use regulations, they can go pretty far.
What personal, non-business activity would be so bad that the zoning gestapo would need to investigate and interrogate homeowners? What if your neighbors hosted a weekly bible study in their homes? Would that need to be stopped by municipal officials? It was in San Diego. Read the whole sordid story here.
According to the article, the homeowners were asked the following questions by the Zoning Stasi:
- Do you have a regular meeting in your home?
- Do you say amen?
- Do you pray?
- Do you
say praise the Lord?
These questions apparently define you or your group as a church in need of a zoning variance. Even if this was a church, and it is not, does the government (at any level) need to concern itself with the practice of religion in a home. There are other places in the world that take a dim view of such home churches.
While commercial activity certainly needs to be regulated in the proper locations, shouldn't city officials be more mindful of activities that are protected by the founding documents of our laws? Then again, I doubt the bureaucrats down at the P&Z department have read the constitution recently.
Not to mention the freedom of religion guaranteed under the first amendment, but what about the freedom of assembly? The freedom of assembly is normally not a largely debated topic, but I think it is being stepped on by this local municipality.
why don’t you live next to a house which has meetings 2 to 3 times a week with speakers in the house and over 15 – 20 kids roaming all over the neighborhood while their parents are listening to their pastor and on top of it have cars parked all over the neighborhood. It wasn’t fun but thank goodness for a neighborhood association who had rules against this type of gathering.
It was becoming unbearable for the neighbors to put up with the noise in to the night from the house and all the kids .
So there are circumstances that happen even right here in nc.
I can’t see a bible study meeting being that disruptive. I would understand if there was a party or something of that nature that was disruptive to the neighborhood. According to reports of the incident in California, it seems to be the issue of assembling for religion outside of a church, not of disrupting the peace of the neighborhood at inappropriate times.
“Do you Pray?”, “Do you say praise the Lord?”, and “Do you say amen?” seem to all be pointed questions at religion and would not be things that would disrupt the peace.