ETA: I'm not allowed to run a business out of my home if it generates traffic. Why should my rights to conduct business be less than someone's rights to conduct religious services?
Municipalities generally have zoning laws that restrict businesses. This is so that General Motors can't plop a production plant in the middle of a residential neighborhood so that the residents have to deal with the traffic, pollution, and whatever else it generates. I suppose you could argue the same thing about a large church, but (1) we aren't talking about a large church here, we are talking about a home gathering of 15 or so people; and (2) while religious freedom and freedom of assembly are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, freedom to conduct business wherever and whenever one desires are not. So, constitutionally at least, I think the freedom to conduct religious services is a freedom of a higher order than that to conduct business.
A government saying, "You can't have large meetings in this building because it's a fire and traffic safety hazard," does not restrict anyone's right to practice their religion.
True enough, although again, I would ask whether other comparable gatherings are being permitted while religious services are being prohibited. If political gatherings, lodge meetings, clubs and societies of various stripes are allowed to meet and religious gatherings are banned, then I think that unconstitutional religious discrimination is being practiced. If NOBODY can have a large meeting in such a building because it is seen as a fire and safety hazard, then fine. Otherwise, the allegation of "fire and safety hazard" is just being used as an excuse to discriminate against religion. And, of course, 15 people gathering in a private home is not a "large meeting" that should be subject to such regulation anyway.
When I worked inpatient psych, people used to pull the Religious Freedom card all the time. They tried to say we had to allow them to do anything done under the guise of religion
Obviously, not everything claimed as a right under the rubric of religious freedom needs to be allowed. The examples you cited are a good example of where reasonableness needs to be applied. Society can't allow human sacrifice because someone claims that is what their religion requires, nor need we accommodate those whose religion involves the use of illegal substances. But we are not discussing these extremes. We are talking about whether a homeowner is allowed to have a reasonable number of friends over to visit - for whatever purpose - in his privately owned home, or whether the state has the right to interfere with such gatherings when religion is involved. When my daughter was a teenager, we had several parties in which 30 or 40 people were present at our house. Should the government have shut us down? Would it have been different if the people were there for a Bible study instead of a party? In fact, I would expect the Bible study to have a greater degree of protection than a party. Frankly, the fact that we are even discussing the matter gives me great concern for the future of freedom in this country. A few decades ago, such governmental interference would have been unthinkable.
