In the US we all have freedoms of speech, religion, the right to bear arms, to associate with whatever organization we admire and all the rest.

Sometimes, people assume this means we are legally required to allow religious nuts to preach at us on our porches, hand us watchtower leaflets, or bring guns onto our property but this isn't so.

We own our homes and our personal opinions. We don't have to respect anyone and everyone who happens to show up at our doors.

Do missionaries have a right to go door to door and ask to talk about their church? Yes, but the residents also have a right to turn them away. It's their choice to be tactful or abrasive.

When we're at home we can make the rules about who is allowed when, for how long, and what they can do or say. We don't have to give them freedom to preach their religion on our property because our religious freedom is safe in our home just like theirs is protected at the mission home or in their wardhouse.

No outsider can tell us to use proper language within our home boundaries. They can't tell us to pray or read scripture. If they say we're in Satan's clutches, we can turn them out and never let them in again. It's our choice to ban anyone for any reason.

We also have a right to tell the bish, mp, or sp to keep all official Mormon visitors off our property. That's our prerogative. After that, the church leaders and their underlings can be told they are trespassing and can be prosecuted if they don't comply.

The same goes for assuming everyone is innocent until proven guilty. We are not courts. We can use our own judgment and say whatever we think within the privacy of our homes and in private conversations.

The laws and Bill of Rights are for our benefit too. They don't have to favor official churches or other organizations.

Well said.

For now, they have a right to go door to door. There are things you can do though. You can install a gate with a lock on it that bars access to your front door(this would enclose your porch). That way you never have to deal with missionaries, salesmen or the like. If there is a gate around the property, then it is questionable whether or not they can be on your porch.

I haven't decided what I'll do if missionaries come a knockin. I'd like to think I'd invite them in, offer them water, be curteous but firmly turn down any invitations to meet with them(I won't tell them I was a member). I just want to be a random nice person. However, they might catch me on a bad day. I guess it depends on what I am doing at that moment or what else I have going on. I could very well just look through the keyhole, see them out there and walk away to get back to whatever I was doing before.

That's what really got me as a misisonary. It dawned on me suddenly one day. Wait...Nobody is just sitting on their hands ready to entertain guests/strangers. They are washing kids, cooking dinner, cleaning, doing homework, dealing with any other issues.Even as a missionary I got really depressed cause I realized that for the most part we were an interruption in people's day. It was crazy to think anyone would just drop everything to listen to something they weren't interested in.

You are exactly right about no one sitting in their home waiting to entertain Mormon missionaries. I've written many posts about exactly that. People in their homes are either busy or loafing. They might be sick or they might be facing job loss, divorce, problems with their children or bereavement. Their first responsibility needs to be with their own life's joys and problems.

I think no one explains this to missionaries in training. Instead they're told people want and need Mormonism in their lives. That's a lie. What they want and need is the time and leisure to do what they need and want to do.

Of course not!

The Bill of Rights is (mostly) a set of restrictions on the Government, not on people.

"Congress shall make no law..."

Nobody has "freedom of religion" or "freedom of speech" in your house. They can take that stuff on down the road.