Chicago – Legal challenge to 150 ft. protest buffer

Unrelated legal case from Missouri, but it might be useful info about the legal definition of "religious worship".

Extract below from pages 32 to 33

http://www.stc.mo.gov/pdf/020_CHAPTER2.pdf

nice find

Under the MO rules, Buddhism would not be classified as a religion, and Buddhist services, facilities wouldn't qualify for tax exemption. It appears that the "legal definition" of what constitutes worship has been interpreted differently by courts in the various states.

CA and MO seem to disagree. Has the SCOTUS ruled definitively on the matter?

^^^THIS!^^^

Or at least bring a copy, as you are raiding RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR DOOR!

I think this is a big fat win! Thanks "three Anons" for your effective efforts.

I wonder though if the reason they chose to drop the charges was because they knew you would challenge the law, and thus make the entire case more expensive than its worth for such a minor infraction. Still I think its a win that you have can still challenge the law.

Reminds me of Epic Nose Guy in some ways. The breach of sec.5 of the public order act citation simply for calling scientology a cult on a protest sign was thrown out by the Crown Prosecution Service and hence never saw a court room. They knew it would get challenged and make it redundant for speech. No further injunction/suit was required to stop future citations because apart from the decision by the CPS someone subsequently got more definitive clarification from them IIRC. The combination of that plus the fact that this gigantic footbullet by the cult and City of London Police got sprawled all over national TV news on the BBC and Channel4 prettymuch ensured that it there would be no problem again. Changing the law would have been epically epic with knobs on though.

If CoS hadn't got greedy and tried to claim the entire week as religious services, they would have got away with it too.

Obviously they think that wogs are extremely stupid.

One of the odd wrinkles in this case is that, on the original citation for "breaking" the 150 ft. law, one of the complaints listed is that people were "shouting slogans," and that was part of what was disrupting the alleged services.

I was there on the day the citation was handed out. I don't remember anybody shouting anything, and neither could the people that I asked. I'm not even sure what their definition of "shouting slogans" means, but I assume it's referring to doing chants, and we don't typically chant anything because we are a fairly quiet group.

You would probably have to raise your voice quite a lot to be heard inside their building. I've seen Domenic really laying into the telephone (presumably bitching out a cop) at the front desk, which is directly inside the door, and I still couldn't hear a peep. So the door must be fairly soundproof, which to me is further evidence that nothing we said out there could even be heard inside.

In one sense, it should be kind of a moot point - of course people have the right to do chants at demonstrations. But still, we are pretty mystified about how the "shouting slogans" thing even appeared on the citation at all, because none of us were shouting. Perhaps Domenic was hallucinating, or I suppose there's a chance something with the police got lost in translation. (Like maybe the policeman misheard something, wrote "shouting slogans" down incorrectly, and Domenic signed off on the complaint anyway without fact-checking it.) But I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Nice ^^ my respect!

Its not unusual for a Scientologists to lie and bullshit to the police in attempt to end and ruin to SPs. Domenic is up there in the OTs, a perfect rank for an OSAbot. If he has to exaggerate and lie on a situation to get you arrested or severely harmed, then he will do it.

Scientology cult apologist Bryan R. Wilson wrote a puff piece with glowing praise for Scientology Sunday services.

Amid all the blather, it is obvious that Scientology and Bryan Wilson both say that Scientology only holds "religious worship" and "church services" during very specific time periods. Primarily, the Sunday services, and less importantly, the Friday evening meetings (i.e. graduation.)

From this old article, actively promoted by the church of scientology, it should be crystal clear that at the time of the writing, scientology considered its "religious services" were only once or twice a week, not all day and all night, 7 days a week.

Pay attention to Item 6: "services conclude with a prayer". None of this neverending, constant religious services bullshit. This article clearly states there is a beginning and end time frame to scientology "religious worship".

If I'm interpreting this wrong, please do point out my misunderstanding.

http://knol.google.com/k/csi-resource-center/the-congregational-services-of-the/d94yulooejvb/28#

Turning their own bullshit pull-the-wool deception of Bryan Wilson against them, I love it!

(What are they going to say "That's not true, we were lying to that old duffer.")

From the current Scientology web site.

Again, this demonstrates that scientology "religious worship" and "church services" are held weekly, for a limited time period, and not continuously, all day and all night 7 days a week.

Scientology web site says "Services always conclude with a prayer."

Code:

http://www.scientology.org/faq/inside-a-church-of-scientology/what-are-scientology-sunday-services.html

2006 Scientology web site, regarding the Friday church service. Pay close attention to scientology's duplicitous (deliberately deceptive) 2 different meanings to the phrase "church service"

"On Fridays, church services are held to celebrate and acknowledge those who have completed a church service in the preceding week."

Code:

http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Chapter/03/page10.htm

I'll repeat that deliberately deceptive use of 2 totally different meanings of their use of "church service"

"On Fridays, church services are held to celebrate and acknowledge those who have completed a church service in the preceding week."

The first use of Church service above is the standard usage, basically meaning "a ceremony of religious worship according to a prescribed form, such as a Sunday Service."

The second use is the deceptive one. Scientology told the IRS that auditing and training are services with intangible benefits. In my opinion, here is a pretty good definition of "service" as scientology is using above in the 2nd use:

http://www.investorwords.com/6664/service.html

"On Fridays, church services are held to celebrate and acknowledge those who have completed a church service in the preceding week."

So, the first "service" above is a free ceremony of religious worship, that anyone can attend, at no charge, e.g. a Sunday Service.

While the second "service" above is an economic activity, with a monetary charge for intangible benefits. By scientology's doctrines, and what scientology told the IRS, theses services cannot be free.

Scientology specializes in duplicitous semantics, so just thought someone should point out the legal scam they are trying to perpetrate with words.

Yeah, yeah, I know this is a wall-o-text. Sorry. I get carried away sometimes, and not very good at tl;dr.

So this would seem to suggest that they are bald faced liars.

I thought they were bear faced liars.

I thought they were bare-faced messiahs

I posted a new thread, with this thread in mind

Scientology DC Org doesn't have Sunday Services every Sunday?

OTBT, thanks for your hard work. One would think that all those IRS CPA's might catch something so obvious.
Our taxes hard at work down the toilet.

The reason that they don't see the obvious is that they've been ordered not to look. (No, no dox, but the Form 990s of various Scientology organizations show obvious signs of being cooked. An experienced IRS staffer who took a look would spot it very quickly.)

It seems that the deal was so long ago that if they wanted to they could find a reason to re-examine this. I believe fraud is always a valid basis.

Great work, Darth and Chifags. Raid for great justice!

Probably a little off topic, but figured I'd post it here anyway.

From Alaska State Department of Transportation web site. This is a sample form for requesting funds.

As an example for filling out the application form, a hypothetical example is given for transporting "parishioners," using a Senior Van to send Seniors to Scientology Church Services at a cost of $25 per trip.

Yup, a hypothetical Van for transporting Seniors to Scientology Sunday Services in Alaska. Probably a crowded van < snicker >

http://ftp.dot.state.ak.us/stwdplng/transit/pub/SFY2012PurchaseofservicesapplicationSample.pdf

And here is the sample table, page 7 of the document

In a bit of a rush...Is this what we've been waiting for?

Chicago clears way for protests outside houses of worship

....There could be similar demonstrations outside houses of worship in Chicago since the city has refused to enforce an ordinance prohibiting protests outside houses of worship during services.

"We had already determined that the ordinance prohibiting protests within a certain distance of churches was unenforceable based on earlier Supreme Court decisions," said Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city of Chicago's legal department.
Questions about the ordinance arose when Alex Hageli, a suburban lobbyist who regularly protests outside the Illinois headquarters of the Church of Scientology, was cited last fall for violating a city code banning pickets from houses of worship.
The code, drafted years ago, precluded anyone who "pickets or demonstrates on a public way within 150 feet of any church, temple, synagogue or other place of worship while services are being conducted and one-half hour before services are to be conducted and one-half hour after services have been concluded."
Last year, when protesters showed up outside Church of Scientology of Illinois headquarters at 3011 N. Lincoln Ave., church leaders posted a sign in the window announcing services from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. When protesters scoffed and persisted, church members called the police.
Hoyle said the city declined to press charges against Hageli because there were too many questions about the constitutionality of the ordinance, which was rarely enforced.
Adam Schwartz, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the law shouldn't have been on the books in the first place....

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com...-for-protests-outside-houses-of-worship-.html

I thought we, uh, got handled?

Awesome jobs Chifags.

We just handled their handle. WHAT NOW, CULTIES?!!?

Keep on kicking ass Chicago Anons!

Fantastic News!

Rarely enforced? That's a good one. We'll see if this funnels down to the officers on duty. I doubt it.

CHICAGO ANONS! BADASS MOTHERFUCKERS FOREVER! YOU CHITOWN BADASSES ROCK!

Just carry a copy of the ordinance. Then show it to them whenever they complain. It worked for masks.

The restriction is still in the code. There's nothing to show them other than this article, which I will of course do. But showing the officers the city's response to the ACLU about not enforcing the code against the protesters at the Catholic Church bought us maybe 20 minutes. Tool Edeling didn't even look at the letter.

Good job, Chicago!

Just spoke with Manya. She heard from the city today. Maybe my letter to them had some affect on their thinking, and maybe things really have changed. I'm Zack de la excited!



And oh yeah, she asked for comments on her blog posting (which she said she will update later tonight with my comments to her just now).

Edit: Please disregard the following, as it's not needed at the moment.



Wow, this is news to me. Last time we were in front of the Chicago Scientology building in February 2011, it was the same old story: constant Scientologist calls to the police, lots of confusion by law enforcement, and police officers reversing each other's decisions. And, at the end of the day, we were again made to move or face arrest. And that was well after someone's citation for "breaking" the 150' ordinance had already been tossed by the city in court.

What I'm trying to say is that, even though the city's legal department seems to be totally done with messing around with this stupid law, the police in Chicago PD district 19 (where the org is located) seem to have missed the memo. The info hasn't trickled down to them, and they've been ignoring our requests to talk about the situation for a long time now, because they keep giving us the runaround.

We need your help.

We must make the district 19 police aware of the fact that the Chicago legal representatives feel this is unenforceable. If the PD know that, they can act properly (i.e. not threaten to arrest peaceful protesters). We need to remove the PD from the bind they're in, where they probably suspect the Scientologists' claims of all-day every-day worship are bullshit but are possibly afraid they may get in trouble or sued by the Scientologists if they don't enforce the 150' law.

That's where you can come in. We need people to start contacting all the CPD District 19 reps we can, preferably the higher-up ones, with news about this. The District 19 general phone number is 312-744-5983; I recommend asking to speak to the desk sergeant so you aren't tying up a dispatch line. If and when we can find out a District 19 non-emergency number, please share it in this thread.

Please call or otherwise contact CPD District 19 letting them know about this and confirm that we'll have the green light at future protests.

We especially need to make sure the officers who work Saturdays are aware of this. You can let them know that this issue isn't going away, because our next protest is just a week and a half away (April 9th) and there will be more coming after that. We've had premature celebrations before, and it won't be time to break out the party hats until our police are on the same page as our legal people.

You are free to say fuck off, NYPA, do it yourself, etc. and that is fine and maybe even appropriate. But for those who want to help out, your aid would be GREATLY appreciated.

From the sound of the Chicago police page, that IS your nonemergency number.
https://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/Communities/Districts/District19

Alternatively (and not just district 19, so you'd have to have your call transferred):

@ Darth: I posted a comment at Manya's blog which is awaiting approval. I was surprised to see there aren't any comments yet.

@ Strong: Can non-Chicago anons help out with harpoonz and calls to teh police?

Thanks. I posted a comment a couple of hours ago and its not up yet either. She did mention she wouldn't be able to update the blog until later tonight, so I'm guessing that's when she'll approve comments as well.

bump.

Not to belabor the obvious, but shouldn't it be the responssibility of the City Legal Department to notify the PD this law doesn't meet Constitutional muster, and to knock off enforcement regardless of Cof$ complaints??

I would also think it's the City Legal Department's responsibility to let the 'City Fathers' know about this so they can strike this law from the books to avoid further issues with PD enforcement that might lay the City open to civil rights violation charges, since SCOTUS has already invalidated it for all practical purposes.

So maybe the harpoons should be directed at the City Legal Department to get off their duffs on this, rather than the PD directly.

Just a thought.

BigBeard

With all due respect to my fellow Anon Strong Strength (and I have tremendous respect for him), CPD takes their legal direction from the corporation counsel. You could have a million people call the 19th District explaining this to them, but, IMHO, if the corporation counsel doesn't tell CPD to back off it ain't gonna matter one bit come the second Saturday of the month.

I sent a certified letter to Corporation Counsel Mara Georges basically telling her I intended to file suit against the city the next time they chased us away. Apparently she gave it some consideration and told Ms. Hoyle to pass along the word. I will attempt to speak with the Ms. Georges to get something in writing. When she doesn't return my call (which is what I suspect will happen), I'll print out the blog and show it to the officers. Unless she took affirmative steps to make it clear CPD is not to enforce this code provision, though, the blog print out will buy us maybe 20 minutes. If they chase us away again, I'll file the lawsuit. No biggie.

And oh yeah, BigBeard, SCOTUS already held one of the other provisions in the city code unconstitutional but its still there. They didn't rewrite it when the earlier decision came down, and I don't think they're going to rewrite it now IF they truly have decided not to enforce to religious services provision. Just FYI.