No group Bible study at home without a $10,000 permit?

June 9, 8:09 PMPolitical Buzz ExaminerJames Hyde

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No group Bible study at home without a $10,000 permit? ’Scuse me? Not in this country

Many people assume that the U.S. Constitution mandates the “separation of church and state.” Those who do are incorrect, but understandable so. Because we’ve heard it so often, it’s easy to understand why one might think it's in the nation’s most important document, but the fact is, nowhere in the Constitution do the words “separation of church and state” appear.

The framers of the Constitution put the religious mandate in the First Amendment with the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

What they intended in the first part of that phrase was to prevent Congress (or any other government entity) from choosing one religion over all others and making everyone in the land adhere to the practices, tenets and rituals associated with that religion. More important, though, is the second half of that phrase: “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” especially in one’s home.

And that’s what this story is about. No government entity can stop you from exercising your religious beliefs anywhere, especially in your home. Nonetheless, an overzealous employee of San Diego County arbitrarily and capriciously decided that a pastor, his wife and 15 friends who studied the Bible at the pastor’s home constituted a “religious assembly,” and until her bosses got wind of it, she hassled the couple needlessly.

In the end, this story is a great example of how local government should work. Too often local government entities are seen as bad guys. To some, all they do is go around and badger people about various laws, ordinances and rules. But that’s not a fair assessment. For the most part, they don’t make the laws, ordinances and rules. Their job is to enforce them, and as enforcers, they sometimes make mistakes or have a loose-cannon employee who wields zoning regulations like a sledgehammer.

That’s how this story started, but not how it ended.

The genesis of this bru ha ha occurred because David Jones, pastor of South Bay Community Church in National City, and his wife Mary hold weekly Bible meetings in their home, and usually have 15 guests join them.

On Good Friday, 2009, a code enforcement officer from San Diego County arrived at the Jones’ property, took photos of the house, then questioned Mary Jones, according to Foxnews.com, cnn.com and World Net Daily, by asking absurd and patently inappropriate questions: "Do you have a regular weekly meeting in your home?” (That’s borderline reasonable; but frankly, none of her business. The arrogance of rest of her questions is atrocious.) “Do you sing? Do you say 'amen'?" "Do you say, 'Praise the Lord'?

When Mary answered, “Yes,” according to the Canada Free Press, the code enforcement officer declared that the Joneses were holding “religious assemblies,” and told the pastor and his wife they were in violation of county codes.

According to World Net Daily, she then told David and Mary Jones that if they continued having the meetings, they would be fined $100 for the first meeting, $200 for the next and so on, “and then,” the inspector threatened, "it will get ugly," unless they got a major use permit (MUP), which could cost as much as $10,000.

According to foxnews.com, David Jones explained, “We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this it is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all.”

As if the face-to-face confrontation with this employee wasn’t enough, she followed up  with a written warning ordering the couple to "cease/stop religious assembly on parcel or obtain a major use permit," according to San Diego news station 10News.

Dean Broyles of the Western Center for Law & Policy (WCLP) represented the Joneses. Had the county continued its unconstitutional conduct, Broyles was prepared to file suit in federal court. He told World Net Daily that the county's interpretation of “assembly” was a violation of religious land-use laws and skewers the First Amendment's rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of religion.

"We believe this is a substantial government burden on the free exercise of religion," Broyles told World Net Daily. He continued, "If one's home is one's castle, certainly you would think the free exercise of religion, of all places, could occur in the home."

When news of this first hit news outlets, San Diego County offices were the targets of a tsunami of protest. According to AP, CNN, foxnews.com, the San Diego Union Tribune  and other sources, they were deluged by emails and phone calls (some from as far away as China). The response was so overwhelming that the ability to conduct county business slowed almost to a stop, while county officials flailed away at all of the incoming complaints.

Without question, the person at fault was the code enforcement officer, whose blurring of the lines between “assembly” and regular use of land was wrong.

Why this issue came up isn’t known, although Pastor Jones believes someone may have complained about parking. But he points out, he has a parking lot behind his house where participants park.

At the time, the Western Center for Law and Policy told World Net Daily it “…is troubled by this draconian move to suppress home Bible studies. If the current trends in our nation continue, churches may be forced underground. If that happens, believers will once again be forced to meet in homes. If homes are already closed by the government to assembly and worship, where then will Christians meet?"

To the county’s great credit, they went out of their way to make things right. They rescinded the verbal and written warnings immediately, apologized and encouraged the Joneses to continue their weekly Bible study with the usual participants. And from the way they responded, it sounds as if their concern about the religious issue at hand was genuine and not motivated by the barrage of complaints.

Walt Ekard, San Diego County Chief Administrative Officer told the San Diego Union Tribune “Let me be clear: religious intolerance in any form is not, and never will be, allowed under any circumstance in San Diego County government. I deeply regret that a routine code enforcement issue has transformed into a debate over religious freedom in San Diego County.”

As for the employee, “Our county simply does not tolerate our employee straying outside what the appropriate questions are,” Chandra Wallar county land use officer told the San Diego Union Tribune. Let’s hope that means that the code enforcement officer involved gets put on a very short leash and retrained, or joins the ranks of the unemployed.

It’s clear that a drastic mistake was made here. The county, likely unaware of the issue until the complaints started flooding in, acted properly and honorably. In this country, a man or woman’s house is their castle and what goes on behind closed doors (save for growing marijuana or committing other misdemeanors or a felony) people should be free to do as they please without any form of government interference—especially hold Bible meetings.

As it’s clearly stated in the Constitution, everybody who ignores the constitutional mandate needs to be dealt with swiftly to avoid any erosion of religious freedoms, especially in one’s home.

As such attacks against religion crop up again, we can point to the way this case was handled by San Diego County as precedent, and hope that other such cases are handled that way as well.