The Kennesaw City Council will consider changing wording throughout their city code from “church” to “religious assembly” at 6:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 2529 J.O. Stephenson Ave. “to promote free and public assembly.”
These changes would bring the city into compliance with recommended changes from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The definition of “church” as “a place where persons regularly assemble for religious worship” would be removed as well as “other places of worship” such as “monasteries, convents, novitiates, parish houses, parsonages, rectories and manses.”
Instead the definition of “religious assembly” would be “a site or facility maintained by a bona fide religious group for the primary purposes of religious worship, study, prayer or other religious practices of such religious group. Religious assemblies include but are not limited to churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.”
Within the Historic Preservation Village Overlay District, religious assemblies will be allowed in the area bounded on the north by Cherokee Street and Big Shanty Road, on the east by Sardis Street, on the south by Old Highway 41 and on the west by CSX Railroad.
They also would be allowed in the Central Business District.
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