I agree that the city has gone too far in its effort to be
accommodating. I believe the comparison between muezzin cries and
cburchbells fails to capture the expressive and penetrating qualities of
muezzin cries. That level of religious noise invites atheists and
religious groups to demand
Sounds like the slippery slope consequences you imagine
would simply result in more speech. Hardly troubling, unless one has
something to fear from hearing different ideas expressed.
Derek L. Gaubatz
Senior Legal Counsel
The Becket Fund for Religious
Liberty
1350 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.,
Could as likely result in cacophony, which is less
benign.
Doug's point is half-persuasive. Church bellsdo not
generally chime for a long stretch five times every day; if they did, you can
bet most residents, Christians included, would object.
-Original Message-From:
[EMAIL
A funny aside. Many years ago I represented a southern California beach city in an
appeal challenging its anti-barking ordinance. The offended dog owner who brought the
suit claimed that the ordinance was void for vagueness because it barred barking that
was audible at the property line after
Many cities have decibel limit ordinances, and that would seem to be the most neutral approach. Having said that, I do think that quality of life especially in a residential neighborhood is a compelling interest (and I say this completely distinct from any RLUIPA issue). The difficulty is in
- Original Message -
From:
Menard, Richard
H.
.. Church bellsdo not
generally chime for a long stretch five times every day; if they did, you can
bet most residents, Christians included, would object.
Neither does the call to prayers. And
whether you find the call to
Quality of life-whatever the phrase means- is an
interest of the highest order as a compelling interest must be?
-Original
Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 12:23
PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:
While it couldn't seriously be argued that preventing the disturbance of quality of
life--without more-- reaches the level of compelling interest, preventing noise
levels from reaching a certain painful level or during the night could be said to
further an actual--and not imagined--public
In answer to Derek (see helow) ~ Lots of people have may
well have something to fear from hearing messages, especially very loud
penetrating important messages and counter-messages in their backyards as
they try to relax with a few friends and do some barbecuing.
Louise
At 10:16 AM 5/14/04, you
I agree about cacaphony, although I particularly like
churchbells. I thought a closer analogy to the cries of muezzins
might be brimstone and hellfire sermons. But even that is not a
good approximation, because it might not engender the same sort of
harms. One can imagine the threat or anguish
And there are plenty of people who are offended
by any reminder of the existence of Christianity, so there we go back to
silencing church bells.
At 12:12 PM 5/14/04 -0700, you wrote:
(2) A special prohibition on
muezzin cries justified by the theory that the cries are offensive to
people whose
11 matches
Mail list logo
