Roe v. Wade overturned

The backlash has already begun. It’s a good thing the Supreme Court also ruled favorably on the Second Amendment and our right to bear arms without onerous bureaucracy. May they continue to be brave! May we all collectively repent and turn back to the God of this land – because if we don’t, we’ll end up destroying ourselves.

Does anyone remember the video from a few years ago, I think from a south-american country, maybe Argentina or Chile, of a “protest” by topless feminists, I think the topic was abortion, outside a Catholic church? A cordon of men, lay members of that church, surrounded the church, holding hands or locking arms, prayed out loud, while the semi-naked women protesters yelled and spat in their faces.

I also have a gut feel that churches known to be pro-life will be attacked along with crisis-pregnancy centers. The latter have already been attacked.

May I suggest that those who set up chairs in your gym (“cultural hall” in Restoration-speak), that you pay attention to fire-codes that mandate a minium aisle width of 36″ leading to/from all exits/doors.

Also be advised that the joining/opening point of those accordian folding partitions are _doors/exits_ when the partition is closed. Therefore, you must have a minimum 36″ wide path/aisle to that closure point on both sides. The YM leaders of our local wards seem to be unaware of that, and usually have a solid line/row of chairs abutting the partition on one side.

Chairs or other objects blocking a 36″ path or aisle to a door are also fire code violation. So keep chairs/tables at least 36″ away from doorways.

I can easily envision protestors disrupting Sunday meetings such that a quick exit would be needed, and you don’t want to waste time by having to remove a row (or aisle) of chairs in the heat of the moment.

Argentina

Thanks. Here’s the search that found it.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=argentina+abortion+protest+feminists+spat+men+catholic&t=fpas&ia=web

It actually happened several times. The videos were take down. Now who would do that?

Books, now I want to know, is the fire code no table or chairs within 36′ of a doorway, or a free path of at least 36′ by the doorways.

If not chairs in that radius, that is a significant chunk of our cultural halls.

36 inches, not feet.

The way I worded it is an over-simplification. The tech/legal verbiage is complicated, depending on whether the aisle passes the back (or side) of the chairs or the front of the chairs, whether there is an aisle on both sides of the rows (as in the center section of seats) or there is an aisle on only one end
of the row (as in a section of seating that is against a wall.)

The aisle approaching a door could be parallel to the wall that has the door or perpendicular to that wall. If it’s parallel to the wall, then yes, there needs to be no chair/object within 36″ of the door and wall.

In the average cultural hall, with a hymn-book shelf, A/V control panel, maybe an A/C control, maybe a closet, you would need an aisle parallel to that wall to access those things, therefore 36″, therefore nothing within 36″ of any door of that wall.

If the opposite wall has doors only, those doors could have aisles perpendicular to the wall. But then you need to factor in how many seats you can place in rows perpendicular to a wall before you need an aisle that is parallel to the wall.

And if a row of seats faces the aisle, the aisle has to be 36″ clearance taking into account that seated people’s legs will extend in front of the chair. I forget how much Indiana code allows for that.

So if you’re measuring a 36″ aisle to the back of a chair, you measure right up to the back of the chair. But if the 36″ aisle passes in front of a row of chairs, you measure 36″ PLUS another 8″ or so (I forget the exact number) to allow for a seated person’s legs.

These measurements are also for ADA rules to allow for wheelchairs to pass in normal conditions. So assume all chairs are occupied when calculating distances.

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Our local people have been doing it wrong for so long, that I contacted the local fire-dept (without naming names or the organization) to get the fire code regs for movable seating. Fire code compliances officers are eager to help and can make free on-site visits to consult with non-profits. I dunno if they would want to do that at 8:30 am on a sunday morning. But sounds like a good thing to do for youth night. I’m cogitating on how to instigate that. We have a new SP, and the current political/social situation may be the impetus to get the seating “challenge” resolved.

I vote we not use current political issues to invite inspections for fire and ADA compliance.

It seems Utah’s politicians are rushing to make sure the same strategy doesn’t happen for LGBT stuff.

“Utah’s four Republican congressmen joined all House Democrats in passing a bill Tuesday that would write same-sex marriage into law.”

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/7/19/23270776/utah-gop-congress-vote-bill-make-same-sex-marriage-law-democrats-respect-for-marriage-act