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As folks freeze to death in Milwaukee, Ohio pastor charged for offering shelter (www.jsonline.com)

submitted 7 months ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to c/news@lemmy.world

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Whose responsibility is it to protect unhoused when it's freezing outside? An Ohio pastor opened his church to the homeless and was charged by city.

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[-] solrize@lemmy.world 131 points 7 months ago

Ambiguous title. The pastor didn't ask for money from the freezing people. He took them in for free. The city then criminally charged him for violating zoning rules:

Chris Avell, pastor of Dad's Place in Bryan, Ohio, was arraigned in court last Thursday because he kept his church open 24/7 to provide warmth to the unhoused.

Ohio law prohibits residential use in first-floor buildings in a business district. Since the church is zoned as a Central Business, the building is restricted from allowing people to eat or sleep on the property.

[-] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 158 points 7 months ago

I dunno. It seems pretty clear that charged in this case means the government sicced the dogs on him for being a… checks notes… good Christian.

[-] SnotFlickerman 110 points 7 months ago

No wonder we have so many Bad Christians when the good ones are punished for their deeds.

This is what the gospel of Jesus meant that the life of a true Christian was the hardest.

The people who actually follow the gospel are generally vilified by the majority of Christians for making the rest of them look bad or something.

[-] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago

If these people get angry at someone performing a good deed because that makes then look bad, they're going to hell.

If even the least absolutist christian sect, the church of England, teaches that as they did to me during my childhood, then those fuckers aren't even close to being Christian. They're just wearing a crucifix.

Fucking posers.

[-] OpenStars@startrek.website 19 points 7 months ago

Hey now, since when does being a good Christian mean... checks notes... taking care of the oppressed, hungry & needy? Oh, well shit. :-P

[-] mercano@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

I wonder if there’s a first amendment defense to be made here. The pastor was following his religious tenets by sheltering the poor in the church in their time of need.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 85 points 7 months ago

criminally charged him for violating zoning rules

Well fuck'em.

If its criminal to do the right thing for your fellow humans, do crime.

[-] Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 8 points 7 months ago

I believe it was Marcus Garvey that said all immoral laws must be disobeyed.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 52 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

So by this logic church patrons would have to leave the premises to eat a snack, participate in a church meal, or even eat one of those wafers they sometimes hand out.

[-] TheLight@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 7 months ago

Yup. Serve the body of Christ? Straight to jail. Your sermon is so boring someone dozes off, believe it or not, jail.

Of course, this doesn't really happen, through the magic of selective enforcement the only people getting the boot are those preventing the homeless from freezing to death, ruining the plans of the local administration.

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[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

Yet another evil created by zoning laws.

[-] PapaStevesy@midwest.social 24 points 7 months ago

If it's a business, why don't they pay taxes?

[-] Substance_P@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yep, and what boundaries constitutes a church, synagogue, mosque or place of worship these days, and why is one religion tax free, yet a philosophical movement is not? To whom is respon$ible for making these institutions exempt of taxation? I for one would be a proud supporter of a church that actually upholds the tenants of biblical teachings, and also follows in the footsteps of those morals, but it's all just a sad sad part of modern day capitalism. This Pastor is a hero and should be heralded as such.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Not that I particularly care if churches are or are not taxed but arguing that religion is philosophy just is empirically wrong. Philosophy is rarely passed generation to generation but religion is almost always is. No one would call an 8 year old a Hegellian but they would grasp the idea that the 8 year old is Muslim and should be given hallel food. A Marxist solider who dies in combat isn't going to get a Marxist funeral. A Platoist is not going to request a Platoist leader to provide them comfort in their final moments. No one is bringing their family to weekly Russellian services where they sing about the glory of set theory. No desperate person has begged their local Utilitarian thinker to pray away the Utility Monster.

I am an atheist btw so don't try it.

[-] DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago

I use Arch Linux, btw.

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[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 121 points 7 months ago

And here I was told that the government doesn't need to take care of these things because churches and charities will pick up the slack...

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 79 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

If this goes to a jury trial, everyone on that jury should fucking nullify.

If you don't know, jury nullification is an implicit property of jury trials. The court can't make you show your work or tell you that your verdict is wrong, so you can give any answer you want. That means if someone is up for something you think is bullshit, like helping the homeless or enjoying marijuana in their backyard, you can just say Not Guilty. The court can't do shit to you so long as you don't scream "NULLIFIED FUCKERS" as you're doing it.

That said, everyone involved in pushing these charges along should probably be voted out of office or run out of town. They're trying to kill people, just slowly and via exposure.

[-] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Just to add, if you're selected for jury duty you should stop taking about it the day you receive the summons. Nobody needs to know what you think about nullification during that time and being in favor of it will get you removed from a bunch of courthouses. It's the jury version of saying "bomb" in an airport.

So just make sure you know your local laws about unanimous decision vs majority decision. In the first, you can just be the stick in the mud. Question everything. In the second you actually have to convince 4 other people to vote with you.

[-] Nastybutler@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Just to add, if you're selected for jury duty you should stop taking about it the day you receive the summons. Nobody needs to know what you think about nullification during that time and being in favor of it will get you removed from a bunch of courthouses

I guess I know how I'm getting out of jury duty next time

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Oh it's not a good idea to do that. You can easily end up spending the weekend in jail for contempt of court.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 75 points 7 months ago

The unhoused are supposed to die quietly, he got in the way of that.

[-] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 61 points 7 months ago

Some heartless bastard abusing the regulations. I'm sure there are good reasons for those regulations being in place, but if they are going to abuse people like this with them, something is very, very wrong. At the absolute least don't enforce those laws when the weather is deadly, and best pass a new ordinance suspending those laws/regulations during deadly weather. Too many of us have absolutely zero empathy for our fellow humans.

[-] AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

I'm not sure that those regulations are there for a good reason. I'm sure that those regulations are there because somebody wanted them and this is not an unintended consequence of them.

In fact I'm almost certain that the abusive anti-human use of this law is something dreamed up when the law was first penned to paper.

[-] HarkMahlberg@kbin.social 5 points 7 months ago

"not a bug but a feature"

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

They're violations of feeding/housing people in a business. There is not a good reason for them. Unless you consider protecting the prices of the housing market to be a good reason.

[-] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 57 points 7 months ago

I hate this god damn country so fucking much.

[-] OpenStars@startrek.website 27 points 7 months ago

Don't lose heart - it's not all this way.

But yeah, we can't hold out faith in it any longer either :-(.

Fwiw, did you notice the silver lining? Pastor willing to go to jail (or whatever, I haven't read the details that closely yet, but let's presume - anyway it's likely true) rather than give up on his beliefs. He will die on this hill, so that they do not have to:-D. Yeah, fuck the system that made him do it, but still it's quite inspiring that people like him exist that will fight against it:-).

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

It is. It throws me a bit sometimes. So used to seeing religion being nothing more than a tool of the powerful against the weak aligned with the government against us. The government makes our life hell, the shamans teach us that it can't be otherwise.

And then once in a rate while a religious leader puts themselves in harm's way for someone else and I don't know what to make of it. How can you spend 99,999 being awful and 1 day being good? Makes no sense.

[-] OpenStars@startrek.website 7 points 7 months ago

Shaman is a good word there - like the ancient Incan and Mayan civilizations, that kept the power of the oligarchy in check by having a... second oligarchy, side-by-side with it. If the king ever didn't like a priest they could kill them, while if a priest didn't like the king they could demand a human sacrifice "at random" of their son/daughter - so checks & balances. It is one of those "neat tricks" that evolution uses, to keep the masses in check underneath the authority of a few. And quite frankly it even makes sense - why train every single peasant farmer how to use a sword & read & such, if you can have 1,000 peasants just doing their illiterate thing in the fields, for every one child that you put a TON of effort into being able to do so much more? (or I guess rather, do differently / higher - like learning sword fighting is an enormous investment of training & skill)

That said, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this preacher guy is probably a genuinely good dude? I mean like 24/7 or at least more than half the day, or at least more than 1/100,000 as you mentioned? Okay I still haven't even read the article tbh, but religion has no monopoly at all on evil - like the Catholic church isn't the only entity in the news lately for diddling children, Epstein and others do that just as often if not more so; though crucially, less hypocritically so.

I'm even going to say something a bit unpopular here: 100 years or so from now, there will be dumb atheists. Right now most atheists are "first-generation" in the sense that someone chooses their own views, even if their parents also held identical views. e.g. the vast majority of atheists today know what the word "agnosticism" means, and has made a decision which one they are. But eventually, it will become fashionable, and stupid people will not do the questioning part, and instead just go ahead and say it simply to fit in, b/c it's what they've heard others do (that's another fantastic "good trick" used extremely often by evolution - it takes a lot less effort to accomplish mimicry than to do the whole entire Real Deal, e.g. a butterfly's wings that look like another set of eyes).

Anyway, whether the guy believes in God or not, it's awesome that he helped out the homeless.:-) Even if other Christians might not have done the same - although popular stories lately aside, Jesus Himself was quite adamant that this kind of thing MUST be done, by anyone who would call themselves one of his followers. e.g. Matthew 25:34-40, tldr: "whatever you do to the least person, it's like you did it directly to me".

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[-] theneverfox@pawb.social 4 points 7 months ago

Because they're not the same people. Pastors don't buy themselves a mansion and also open up their home to people in need... You get one or the other. Some of them do it for the authority, but some just want to serve and keep a community healthy.

Look at this pope compared to the last one. The last one was basically a career priest. This one went around, physically, helping poor people.

The last one was pretty conservative and anti-gay, this one is just pro-human

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[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago

It’s the entire world

[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 50 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

As much as I despise religion, the problems of our country are not caused by religion. They are caused by conservatives.

Usually those conservatives are religious and wield their religion as a weapon, but the core problem has always been conservatives.

When a religious person is not conservative, their non-conservative behavior is punished by the conservatives.

[-] kromem@lemmy.world 21 points 7 months ago

While this is true, religion goes a long way in priming people to believe in total BS without questioning it or using critical thinking.

[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 9 points 7 months ago

This. By weaving their politics directly into religion, they get to benefit from the inherent suspension of disbelief that religion requires. No amount of proof or evidence will sway a conservative because the blind faith that all proof and evidence is fake is the key point of conservatism.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Not really it's mostly the "news" poisoning people. In this case Fox "news".

Our Chinese friends aren't much into religion and they don't seem to have much issue buying into the same propaganda.

[-] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

What are they conserving? Is it class hierarchy and capitalism? We’ll never know…

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[-] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 35 points 7 months ago

When doing the right thing, or even doing right by your conscience, is a crime... you live in a place and time in which politicians haven't been tarred or feathered and run out of town on a rail in too long

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago

I am really confused here. Look where Milwaukee is in relation to Ohio. (For non USians, it's under the second E in Milwaukee.)

It's 262 miles from Milwaukee to the Ohio state line by car.

[-] theluckyone@lemmy.world 51 points 7 months ago

Pastor is in Ohio.Hears reports of people dying in Milwaukee. Pastor offers shelter to people in Ohio. Pastor is charged.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago

Thank you.

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 11 points 7 months ago

Because he should've offered shelter to people in Milwaukee /s

The situation is abhorrent though, some Kafkaesque level of reality

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago

The newspaper is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They're contextualizing it for local readers.

[-] tweeks@feddit.nl 7 points 7 months ago

Didn't read your part for non USians so was searching on the left side of the chart. Still wanted to say thanks though for adding it :p

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 30 points 7 months ago

The "pro-life" party strikes again

[-] arin@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Can they just charge the other pastors who 'play' with little boys?

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this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024

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