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

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/news

111 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 126 points 5 months ago (7 children)

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 159 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 102 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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 28 points 5 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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 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 13 points 5 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.

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[–] TropicalDingdong 85 points 5 months ago (1 children)

criminally charged him for violating zoning rules

Well fuck'em.

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

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

[–] FireRetardant 55 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (5 children)

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 30 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Yet another evil created by zoning laws.

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[–] maness300 27 points 5 months ago (2 children)

he building is restricted from allowing people to eat or sleep on the property.

Okay... so any business in the 'business district' is restricted from allowing people to eat or sleep on their property.

If I was a lawyer, I'd record people eating in their business district buildings and present that to the court right next to the law that says they're not allowed to do it.

I would fight tooth and nail to ensure whatever judicial overreach is screwing over poor people also screws over rich ones.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

No eating in the business district means no break rooms. And if Christian churches are in the business district, I’d imagine this means no communion wafers either.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Substance_P 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 5 months ago (10 children)

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...

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

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 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

deleted by creator

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[–] Maggoty 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 5 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 62 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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 32 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Maggoty 10 points 5 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 56 points 5 months ago (21 children)

I hate this god damn country so fucking much.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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 12 points 5 months ago (9 children)

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.

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[–] Burn_The_Right 48 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

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 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

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[–] BeautifulMind 35 points 5 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

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago

The "pro-life" party strikes again

[–] FlyingSquid 25 points 5 months ago (3 children)

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 51 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] FlyingSquid 15 points 5 months ago

Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

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

The situation is abhorrent though, some Kafkaesque level of reality

[–] Maggoty 20 points 5 months ago

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

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[–] arin 10 points 5 months ago

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

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