TOLLING THE BELLS OF CONFUSION

"Attorneys representing a Christian church leader convicted as a criminal for allowing his church bells to ring say they are hoping appellate decisions will overturn the conviction of Bishop Rick Painter and also strike down the Phoenix regulation under which he was convicted, and several other churches now are being threatened.

Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund today argued both cases and told WND the prosecution of Painter of Christ the King Liturgical Charismatic Church and the threats against other churches, including St. Mark Roman Catholic Parish and First Christian Church of Phoenix, are unprecedented...

...They were measured at 67 decibels while a normal conversation ranges about 60 to 70.

However, Painter was convicted under a Phoenix ordinance that restricts noise levels and includes an exemption for louder sounds from ice cream trucks but not for churches. He was given 10 days in jail, suspended, and three years of probation for his offense. He also was ordered to muffle the bells at his church to no more than 60 decibels for specific brief periods of time...

...Phoenix allows those commercial operations to emit sounds up to 70 decibels at a distance of 50 feet, although no allowances are applied to churches."

World Net Daily

So, is this religious persecution or just persecution of the kind experienced everyday when some local bureaucrat goes mad with power? Having worked for years as a contractor with small municipalities my guess would be the latter but we'll never know. Why? Because journalists don't seem capable of answering the five basic questions any longer; who, what, where, when and why.

This has become increasingly evident to me as I read my local papers. I'm generally left with questions that would have been answered if the writer would have just followed the rule of five.
Come on, we learned this in High School.

Back to the story. It says that other churches are being targeted. But, is anything else? If it's just churches well then we have our answer but if the city is going after other sources of noise then things are much less clear. And how did the complaint get started? Did a citizen call the city to complain or did an inspector start the ball rolling? If the noise level was within the allowable limits then why was the pastor convicted? Reading between the lines I get the feeling that attorneys pushed this case to use it to overturn "unconstitutionally vague noise ordinances". If that's the case, did the Pastor continue, on advice of these same attorneys, to violate the local ordinances in order to be arrested and have the case go to court? This story leaves me with a lot of questions and I get the feeling that this writer may be leaving something out to paint the picture he desires.

Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of church bells and I hate meddlesome bureaucrats. I also hate news stories that either fail to give all the pertinent information or intentionally omit information to spin a story.

So I say the the let the truth ring clearly! I'm tired of everything I read being cloaked in agendas.