I received this comment today, and it is a great example of how frustrating posting comments to the Mountain Home News comments section can be. A well organized, well articulated set of critiques or questions such as these might not get the well thought out response deserving of the time and thought put into them.
Here, the commenter will (we hope) receive well thought out rebuttals or answers to the topic at hand, and not a bunch of randomly capitalized and punctuated rambling and incoherent diatribes.
For now, I leave you with this excellent comment, now promoted to blog post, and will provide my answers and commentary when able:
Comment from "Vic":
First off – great job on helping to set the record straight. Secondly, I read the complaint when it was first made public and couldn’t believe that any court would agree that it was valid. Reading it again hasn’t changed my mind. Reading through the documentation you’ve posted makes surer that it’s groundless. To me the mere mention of RLUIPA was supposed to be enough to make the city buckle.
Most of the points in the claim seem ridiculous; paragraph 8 especially. No one forced them into that temporary location, and if their members didn’t want to worship where others did, or have the capacity to care for their own children during a two hour service – why is that the city’s fault? Did they survey the community to get the data to back up paragraphs 48-52, who did the survey, where are the results? Again to me, this is entire complaint is baseless.
The parking/Crosswalk situation falls to the “church/counseling business”. If they don’t have safe, adequate parking or access from the parking to their facility, acquiring it needs to be built into their business plan. Pretty simple. The sewage situation had to be obviously underrated for their planned operation. Why didn’t they address that and plan funding accordingly? That’s what any business would do.
Alcohol letter: what is a “present of future commercial activities relating to the sale or consumption of alcohol”? Are there local businesses planning to give away alcohol as a present in the near future, or did the three people who signed the document not proof it before having it notarized? Just wondering what level of professionalism we are dealing with here. It’s one thing to comment on a blog or online forum and have typos or misspellings…but not in a professional document that is known to be destined for the public domain.
I don’t understand why any church would have to incorporate. Aren’t religious organizations covered legally because they are religious organizations, without requiring incorporation? Then they incorporate two businesses and not the “church”, it’s not consistent. I realize there are some “churches” incorporate, I just don’t know why.
Licensing and certifications, in my opinion, should be legally recognized and publically registered for any field (religious or not) if they would require licensing or certification had they not been a religious organization (self-proclaimed or not). Counseling, general construction, vending hotdogs, everything that is in a sphere of operation that would normally require certification and/or licensure should not be exempt because they affiliate themselves with a religion. I know there are plenty of actual licensed and certified counselors that are faith based – some even take Tricare!
If I’m looking to break into a business (and make no mistake, that’s all this is), I would really have had my bases covered to be become a presence in that given field. That doesn’t appear to have happened in this case.
Anyway, that’s a couple of things off the top of my head on this subject. Good blog you have going here. Can’t wait to get to the rest of the story.
Vic
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