[Vision2020] NSA is NOT illegal?

[Donovan Arnold]

Visioneers,

I for one must, in part, agree with Eric Martin and Phil Roderick on this 
one issue. While I am disgusted by the teachings of New St. Andrews, and I 
pray the students learn enough to know what a bunch of garbage Calvinism is 
and how they are just worshiping something that is not real, just the idea 
of one man, and under the leadership of false prophets, I believe in their 
right to practice their beliefs. I feel that this is simply a witch hunt 
against a group of people in our community that have a different way of 
thinking and believing than the majority of us.

Many of you seem to lose sight of the fact that the law was invented to 
serve people, not people to serve the law.  A few points to make about the 
law;

First, laws are written by humans. Humans make mistakes; they cannot take 
every conceivable happenstance into consideration over the next 1-200 years. 
The law needs to be changed, adapted, altered, and exceptions need to be 
granted.  Laws are messed up, flawed, inconsistent, unfair, out of date, and 
short sighted. That doesn't mean that we can just ignore them. What is does 
mean is that we must look at why something is a law or why there is not a 
law, and change that law or grant exceptions for the purpose of helping 
others to best suit the rights and needs of those that it governs.

Laws are not meant for the following reasons;

1) To target individuals that you disagree with that aren't doing anything 
to anyone else

2) To enforce prejudice directly or indirectly

3) To silence or harass those that you dislike of disagree with

Even if the Moscow City Code stated, "New St. Andrew's cannot be downtown" 
It would still be legal for them to do so. If it was written in city code 
that no college can be downtown, it would still be legal. If city code said 
no college, or religious institution could be downtown, it still would be 
legal for them to do so. The reason why is because the first amendment to 
the constitution guarantees them the right to be there. They have the right 
to express themselves and their beliefs regardless of if it makes are 
stomachs turn. The only exception is if there was a valid public concern, 
such as a serious public or safety concern, or if they were blatantly 
violating the rights of another group downtown.

It is my belief that the city code was written for the purposes of 
preventing the University of Idaho from expanding downtown. To use it for 
the purposes of singling out a private college that practices a religion and 
ideology that we disagree with is just plain wrong.

While I am sure that many of our members of the city council and the 
planning and zoning committee vary in their tolerance and acceptance of CC 
or NSA, I am confident that they will do what is fair to everyone and not 
abuse the law to violate the constitutional rights of members of NSA.

Nobody has given a fair and sound reason as to why NSA should not be where 
they are now, other than, an old law, and that they just don't like them 
there. Those are not valid, liable, substantial reasons to deny someone 
their right to practice their religious and ideological beliefs.

Denying people their rights is not a judgment about them; it is a judgment 
about you.

Donovan J Arnold




>From: Eric Martin <rik82 at yahoo.com>
>To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] NSA illegal?
>Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 12:41:46 -0800 (PST)
>
>A few questions asked in the spirit of trying to get a
>better grasp on the issues.
>
>1.  The last couple of emails have given me the
>impresseion that "educational instituions" that are
>not written into the zoning ordience as ok are
>prohibited.  I read the zoning ordienance and while
>section 3.5.7 specifically included:
>
>"commercial schools, churches, synagogues, mosques,
>governmental offices,libraries, museums, art galleris,
>police and fire station, and similiar public or
>private instituions"
>
>...as  permitted principle uses and structures -- I
>don't see anything that specifies any non-permitted
>uses and structures used for educational purposes.  So
>someone is gonna have to explain to me how the
>conclusion was reached that trade/professional schools
>are o.k., but other types of schools are not.
>
>I'm not interested in who does or doesn't like Wilson.
>  I want to know on what grounds this interpretaion of
>zoning ordinance comes from. My knowledge of the city
>ordinances is pretty weak, so perhaps this is a simple
>issue that everybody else on the list is already clear
>on.  But I would like some explanation.
>
>
>2.  How is it that NSA, as contoversial as that
>instituion and its affiliated church have been, was
>able to open their doors as an educational institution
>if that was an illegal activity in their current
>locatation in the first place?  Were none of the
>citizens of this town -- including the city council --
>aware of the zoning ordienance?  It seems like this
>issue should have come up long ago.  Why didn't it?
>
>Thanks in advance for whatever clarification on these
>two issue members of the list can offer.
>
>Eric
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