{"id":3867,"date":"2004-01-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-01-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/01\/17\/2004-01-17-florida-community-orders-resident-to-stop-flying-hindu-prayer-flag\/"},"modified":"2004-01-17T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-01-17T12:00:00","slug":"2004-01-17-florida-community-orders-resident-to-stop-flying-hindu-prayer-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/01\/17\/2004-01-17-florida-community-orders-resident-to-stop-flying-hindu-prayer-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Community Orders Resident to Stop Flying Hindu Prayer Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/news\/local\/southflorida\/sfl-phindu15jan15,0,6559693.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines\">Source<\/a><\/P><P>WEST LANTANA, FLORIDA, January 15, 2004: Leila Persaud, a retired teacher who lives in a gated community (a subdivision of homes where access to the roads is allowed only for residents, who pass through a locked gate) of West Lantana in Florida said she faces fines and a trip to court if she continues to fly a jhandi (brightly colored Hindu prayer flag on a bamboo pole) in front of her house. The Rivermill homeowners association board voted last year to ban religious symbols from all 377 of the community&#8217;s front yards, except during a few weeks around official holidays such as Christmas. Mike Magnanti, president of the board, said the rule was an attempt to address residents&#8217; complaints fairly that Persaud&#8217;s jhandi looks like &#8220;a torn, tattered towel in a tree.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\n<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;If she wants to put it in front during a holiday period, that&#8217;s OK,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If she wants to display it during the full year, she needs to put it in her back yard.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\n<BR><br \/>\nPersaud and her priest, Vishnu Sharma, say the rule discriminates against Hindus. Florida American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jim Green agrees. &#8220;Unfortunately the [homeowners association] might have the power to pass such a discriminatory regulation,&#8221; Green said. &#8220;Whether such a discriminatory regulation would be enforceable in the state or federal courts is another question.&#8221; Persaud has refused to move hers from its spot by her front door. Her only concession has been to lower it so it&#8217;s hidden among some bushes.<BR><br \/>\n<\/P> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SourceWEST LANTANA, FLORIDA, January 15, 2004: Leila Persaud, a retired teacher who lives in a gated community (a subdivision of,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}