Last year, California Christians were fined $600 for holding a home Bible study in San Juan Capistrano, a city founded on belief in Jesus Christ.
The city slapped the Christians, Chuck Fromm and Stephanie Fromm, with a $300 fine --- twice --- for not having a government permit to pray in their home with guests.
The City of San Juan Capistrano saw a group of believers gathered in the Lord's name as a church in need of a permit to operate.
The Fromm family appealed the fine but was told that future fines would be $500 per violation if they continued praying in their home without approval and a government permit.
The City of San Juan Capistrano coldly rejected the Fromm family's appeal.
The Fromm Family was expected to go through the same expenses, permits and approvals as a church full of worshipers would, including engineering and traffic studies, architectural designs, seismic retrofits and public hearings regarding the need for such a prayer meeting.
Without the permit, the Fromm residence was marked by government officials as an illegal church to be shut down.
People of faith across America became outraged, and many of the Fromms' neighbors wrote letters of support for the Christians guilty of praying for the very leaders who had publicly branded them as outlaws.
The Pacific Justice Institute, a Sacramento-based nonprofit legal defense organization had taken on the Fromm case - pro bono - as a religious freedom case.
Attorney Brad Dacus, the PJI president, acted as the Fromms' spokesperson and was "committed to defending this family's home Bible study all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Dacus expressed the shock that was felt in 2011 by people of faith in California, across the nation and overseas.
"An informal gathering in a home cannot be treated with suspicion by the government, or worse than any other gathering of friends, just because it is religious. We cannot allow this to happen in America."
The Pacific Justice Institute took the religious freedom case to the next level by appealing the decision to the California Superior Court in Orange County.
The City of San Juan Capistrano was hit with a tsunami of letters, phone calls and emails accusing municipal government officials of levying fines for the study of religion.
The public outcry, condemnation and international publicity created a public relations nightmare for Orange County's oldest city.
What was the result?
Chuck and Stephanie Fromm dropped the lawsuit in November 2011 after the city returned their money and offered to re-examine the municipal code.
The Planning Commission met a few days later and formally petitioned the city to change the ordinance, declaring the outdated law "unclear and archaic."
The code mandates that religious, fraternal or nonprofit organizations apply for conditional use permits, which could be broadly interpreted to include gatherings of many different sizes and frequencies.
Draft language of an amendment presented at the meeting proposed creating a new definition called "routine assembly uses," or regular gatherings of 25 or more individuals.
Commissioners flatly rejected the language. They said it did not properly address variations in property sizes and that a 25 person limit was arbitrary.
In January 2012, the San Juan Capistrano City Council voted unanimously to begin revising the code.
A draft amendment could be presented to the Planning Commission in April 2012.
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