[Vision2020] Legal harrassment of a religious denomination

[Daniel Bakken]

I have been reading the posts here for several years. I was born in
Moscow and have lived here the past three years, and I intend to stay
in Moscow as long as God permits. I attend New St. Andrews College and
work at First Step Internet (which hosts this fine list). I work with
atheists, agnostics, Mormons, and Christians of other denominations.
If you have our internet service, you have probably talked to me on
the phone, and I hope my advice was professional and polite,
regardless of what your religious, racial, or sexual identity might
be. My views do not necessarily reflect those of Christ Church, NSA,
or First Step Internet.

I shop at the same local businesses most of you do, including Winco,
Safeway, One World Coffee, Bucers, BookPeople, Ball and Cross Books,
the Co-op, Scott's Flowers, Couer d'Alene Brewing Company, Patty's
Kitchen, etc etc.

I don't board with a family, so this new zoning complaint doesn't
affect me directly. I live in a legally rented duplex, and when I am
married in two months I will be living in a legally rented apartment.
Attending NSA and Christ Church seems to automatically make one
persona non grata on this list, but I'm proud of that fact, just as
proud as I am to be your neighbor and to live together in this fine
city. I'm also proud that I attended a (government funded) community
college in Texas for two years, that my brother studied Electrical
Engineering at UI, and that my father graduated with an MS from UI.

These legal assaults on my fellow students, following hard on the
heels of the Skattaboe building zoning complaints, are sickening. I am
your neighbor, and it hurts deeply to see this harassment cloaked in
legal technicalities targeting only my school and church. Religious
discrimination veiled in false appeals to justice is still
discrimination.

Your neighbor,
     Daniel Bakken