Law Favoring Churches Teaching Family Values Questioned

According to today's San Diego Tribune, the mayor of Chula Vista, California is uncomfortable with a 14-year old city ordinance that was designed to set aside affordable land for churches, social service centers, day care facilities and small parks in the city's new eastern neighborhoods. Developments of over 50 acres must set aside land for "community purpose facilities", defined in part as churches that teach "traditional family values". In the 1980's, when the ordinance was enacted, the city was battling, for example, with a sex club owner who claimed his facility was a church. At the mayor's request, the city attorney's office is looking at removing the language referring to traditional family values.