I'm saying the guy knew the rules and yet he chose to break them. He must have known the penalty and evidently expected to pay the penalty.
There is evidence that Salam knew he was violating codes and civil laws, yes. You of course know that many legal penalties are not fixed and are thus left to the interpretation of the court. Did your man, Salam, know what his penalties would be? Of course not. He may have assumed a range of possibilities.
IMO, he did this as a religious protest.
Fine, that is your opinion. Nothing supports your opinion, however. In fact, Salam hasn't been charged with being "religious". Your opinion is unfounded. You have not, and cannot, provide facts to support your opinion. Don't expect anyone here to rally behind you, because "Billy said so." The city and the state can and have provided facts to support their "opinion", if you like. Kind of makes the your argument suck hind tit.
He has the right to do so, whether you or I think it's okay or not.
I once went to a nudist resort in Florida with a lady I was dating. She suggested the idea. It took me less than a minute to get in the car. While at the resort we met a group of people who were nude Baptists. Yep. I was fascinated. In fact, I spend part of the second day with the pastor and his wife, talking about their unique "view". They even invited us to lunch. The reverend and the nekkid members
wanted to have their own church. They couldn't find a local government that would permit it and thus they had services every Sunday at the nudist resort.
I'm betting that one hell of a lot of Americans wouldn't want a church full of nekkid people next door to their houses, in their neighborhoods. Would you, Billy? Can we assume most Americans would support that kind of religious worship? Can we assume that most Baptists would support that kind of religious worship?
Don't hand us all that crap about religious rights and all the sanctimony that goes with it. It simply isn't true. You know that as must anyone else.
No I can not say with authority his parishioners knew or didn't know about the code violations, nor can you, but I would think if they were members then they probably knew the rules/conditions.
You said that you don't know if everyone was aware of the violations, but some people might have known, probably, maybe. That was a non-answer.