" 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 — unless they are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to San Diego County.
"On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county." David Jones told FOX News.
"We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all," Jones said.
A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited "unlawful use of land," ordering them to either "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit," the couple's attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.
But the major use permit could cost the Jones' thousands of dollars just to have a few friends over."
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Fox News"On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county." David Jones told FOX News.
"We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all," Jones said.
A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited "unlawful use of land," ordering them to either "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit," the couple's attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.
But the major use permit could cost the Jones' thousands of dollars just to have a few friends over."
Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without Permit
If we take this article at face value, this is rather disturbing. I'm all for helping remove people's head from the ass of religion but this just sounds funky. If the store is true as presented, this seems like an overstep in interpreting the law and rather discriminatory. On the other hand, depending on how the event is organized and advertised, and how many people really show up, there might be technical legal grounds for the county's actions. Still, this seems like a semantics dispute more than anything. Something tells me we're not getting the whole story on this one. It will be interesting to follow this story and see where it leads.
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