Pastor ARRESTED For Sheltering Homeless In -20 Degrees

[Zincwarrior]

An update: the Pastor has now sued the city.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/01/25/ohio-pastor-homeless-lawsuit/

Pastor sues Ohio city after he faced charges tied to housing homeless people​

By Jonathan Edwards
January 25, 2024 at 11:44 a.m. EST
Chris Avell appears in court in Bryan, Ohio, earlier this month, in this image made from video. (WTVG/AP)

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Pastor Chris Avell returned to his Bryan, Ohio, church on New Year’s Eve with doughnuts ahead of the Sunday morning service. As he was getting out of his car, he recalled spotting a police officer walking toward him.

Avell, who had been tussling with city officials for nearly two months about keeping Dad’s Place church open 24/7 and sheltering homeless people overnight, was told that he was being charged with 18 counts of violating the city’s zoning ordinance, the pastor recalled in an interview with The Washington Post.

On Monday, Avell’s church sued the city and several of its officials, alleging that they are trying to stifle Avell from exercising his religious beliefs by sheltering the homeless. In a 43-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Ohio, the church accused city officials of waging a months-long harassment campaign to try to bully the pastor into evicting homeless people from the church. The lawsuit comes less than two weeks after Avell pleaded not guilty to the 18 zoning violations.

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Bryan City Attorney Marc Fishel said officials are applying the law to Dad’s Place just as it would to any other business or organizations. Aside from zoning ordinances, the church violated fire codes in a way that endangered lives, the city alleged.
“Throughout this process, the City has merely tried to get Dad’s Place to comply with laws that apply to everyone,” Fishel said.
Jeremy Dys, a lawyer with First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit law firm that’s representing Avell and that specializes in religious freedom cases, said the pastor wants to carry out his mission of taking care of people in need.
“This is what churches have done for centuries, millenia even,” Dys said.

The law the church’s lawsuit claims the city is violating protects religious institutions from governments discriminating against them using zoning laws. Frederick Gedicks, a law professor at Brigham Young University, said that city officials will have to demonstrate that stopping Dad’s Place serves a compelling public interest like fire safety, and that preventing people from staying at the church overnight is the least restrictive way to serve that interest.

 

[1miseryindex]

If it's between zoning and allowing these people to freeze to death, screw zoning. The business community wants to get rid of the homeless, rather than homelessness and constantly votes for politicians who defund government programs that eliminate homelessness. Like what happened in Salt Lake City, Utah, and throughout that state, when mostly Republicans decided to stop funding the government's "Housing First" program which essentially eliminated homelessness from the state for about five or six years. They reduced homelessness by like 85%. Then the Republicans started complaining about the cost of housing the homeless and destroyed the program.

Homelessness is more expensive than housing the homeless in small studio apartments, under the supervision of social workers and law enforcement. They had to attend AA and NA meetings, they had to get tested for drugs periodically, and many of them stopped drinking and drugging, and got their lives back.

That government-funded program in Utah was a blessing from God, and the Republicans started to self-righteously moralize about "How can we just provide free housing to these no-good, worthless homeless people, when so many people are working hard to pay their bills?", the answer to that question is that some people need extra help and to do otherwise is more expensive for society. Not to help these people, ends up hurting those hard-working people who are trying to pay their bills. Moreover, this program facilitates the rehabilitation or restoration of these homeless people, helping them become productive members of society. The Housing First program saved lives.

why should homeless people be surveilled by the state more than other people?

They are discriminated against as it is... thought to be sub-human by many who call themselves Americans... You know, that old

All men are created equal thing... which is hardly the way things are in reality. It's a very noble ideal but the US doesn't live up to 90% of the time

 

[1miseryindex]

A fetus is a human being. To be precise it is a stage of development of a human being.

It's not a human being, it's a potential human being. It doesn't receive the status of a human being until society or more importantly, God considers it a full-fledged human being (fetuses aren't considered living souls until they're out of their mother's wombs and breathing). The actual human being is the woman, who is pregnant, at least this is the case in early gestation, before what is in her womb develops a functioning brain and may be able to experience pain. etc.

Going back to the Bible and Jewish law. According to the Bible, the fetus is an appendage of the mother's body. Until it is well developed, having the full form of a human being, it doesn't have any rights. It's part of the mother's life until it is born, and takes its first breath.

In Post 78

You have made it look like I, 1MiseryIndex said something I absolutely did NOT say. Please change this

Maybe you can't change it at this point so maybe I will have to make my own thread about this "mistake"

 

[TruthNotBS]

In Post 78

You have made it look like I, 1MiseryIndex said something I absolutely did NOT say. Please change this

Maybe you can't change it at this point so maybe I will have to make my own thread about this "mistake"

Go right ahead, we can debate whether a woman has a right to abort her pregnancy early or not. Shoot, go ahead.

 

[TruthNotBS]

why should homeless people be surveilled by the state more than other people?

They are discriminated against as it is... thought to be sub-human by many who call themselves Americans... You know, that old

All men are created equal thing... which is hardly the way things are in reality. It's a very noble ideal but the US doesn't live up to 90% of the time

You're talking gobbledygook. Are you OK?

 

[whitehall]

You can't put a criminal in jail these days for assault or robbery. Something doesn't make sense.