Three times every day in Butler, a great audial disturbance erupts above us. Few people even notice.

At 9 a.m., noon and 6 p.m., the church bells and school bells peal across the downtown in a mad chorus of clanging brass. It endures less than a minute. For those of us who are tuned in to it, it’s a song of reassurance: all is well and life goes on.

But mostly, it goes unnoticed and unacknowledged. Who in their right mind would point out that such a thing violates the city’s noise ordinance?

That’s nonsense, right? It would be unreasonable to complain.

That’s our assessment of what happened last week in York County, where a homeowner who plays taps through loudspeakers every night has been ordered to cut it out.

The Glen Rock Borough Council voted unanimously to restrict Councilman Joshua Corney’s broadcast of the bugle song to Sunday nights and certain flag holidays like Fourth of July, Memorial Day and Patriot’s Day.

Councilman Corney, a lieutenant commander in the Navy who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, says he plays the recording of the bugle call for “lights out” to honor those in the armed forces. He adds that he is willing to compromise but doesn’t want to sacrifice his rights.

Corney didn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting, but he was there in April, according to meeting minutes posted online, which indicated Corney has been pressing for compromise. He’d asked the borough solicitor for clarification on the municipal ordinance regulating noise and reasonable complaints. He’d also participated in discussions about lowering the volume of the loudspeakers.

They’re having the same debate about noise in Hamtramck, Michigan, but with a twist. Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb, is the first American city with a Muslim majority population. The old-timers, mostly descended from Polish Catholic immigrants, are having a hard time adjusting to the call-to-prayer chants emanating five times a day from the external sound systems of Hamtramck’s four new mosques.

But the people of Hamtramck are putting up with the calls to prayer. They accept that freedom of worship is a fundamental right, and five minaret calls a day isn’t much more of an interruption than church bells pealing out three times a day, as they do here in Butler.

All is well. Life goes on.

We don’t know or even care about the intimate details of the case in Glen Rock. However, we do defend the councilman’s right to play taps at sunset.

We do suspect devious intentions in the unanimous vote taken in Corney’s absence. A veteran of two military theaters of operation deserves more respect than that.