Well, it could also take place in Mississippi, as it indeed did (and they suspended the judge who imposed such a sentence). According to The Raw Story, this is going on in Bay Minette, Alabama:
Starting this week, the city judge will implement Operation Restore Our Community (ROC), which gives misdemeanor offenders a choice between fines and jail or a year of Sunday church services.
“Operation ROC resulted from meetings with church leaders,” Bay Minette Police Chief Mike Rowland told the Alabama Press-Register. “It was agreed by all the pastors that at the core of the crime problem was the erosion of family values and morals. We have children raising children and parents not instilling values in young people.” . . .
Pastor Robert Gates told WRKG that the program was a win-win for everyone involved.
“You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society,” he said.
Like the Pope and his child-abusing minions? Or those people who shoot abortion doctors?
And even atheists have to get their butts in the pews if they want to avoid jail, while the Jews must hie themselves to Christian churches:
Critics charge that the program is unfair to some minority religious groups because of the 56 participating churches, none are mosques or synagogues. And Atheists have no choice but compromise their beliefs or go to jail.
One word: unconstitutional.
__________
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia a man was beheaded for committing one of the nation’s capital crimes: sorcery.
h/t: Hempenstein
I wonder if they’ll argue that sending DUI offenders to A.A. set the precedent.
There are atheists in prison?
If faced with the choice of a fine or a year of going to church, I think I’d have to go with the fine.
The only thing surprising to me is that I’ve never heard of Bay Minette before.
I’m sure it wasn’t intended, but at one level, it makes church attendance look simply like an alternative form of punishment.
“Cruel and unusual” punishment at that!
Aww, someone already said it.
Good one!
So, how soon can a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Reformed) be up and running? I am sure there must be at least one pub that allows pirate dress codes in the area. 😉
Oh, I don’t think they’d want me actively participating in church services….
b&
“I’m sure it wasn’t intended, but at one level, it makes church attendance look simply like an alternative form of punishment.”
Isn’t it supposed to be? 🙂
And yeah, clearly unconstitutional.
Oh, please, send me to church so I can raise hell and make a few converts and flush out the closet skeptics! You told me I had to go, yer honor, not that I had to agree with what I heard there or fail to take part in the discussion. I’ll even volunteer to teach Sunday school. Yeah, go ahead and send an atheist/humanist preacher to church…or jail. Your choice judgy-wudgy. I can work either crowd.
While I certainly agree that a state justice system imposing church on anyone – regardless of any encounters with the law – is completely inappropriate, as a thought experiment I wonder how the penal system might be effected by this plan… Fewer people incarcerated, opportunities to serve the community and exposure to Christian values, which, while admittedly gravely misapplied or ignored in the name of religion far too often, are in general in line with legal codes. Thoughts?
*thought experiment, remember*
Until you define how a value is “christian” vs. just plain moral, your thought experiment is a non-starter.
Haha, I might take up crossdressing, and show up in my “Sunday Best” every week.
Bay Minette only has a population of 8500 (with another 20,000 in the area) so not surprising it hasn’t been heard of. The municipal court only has sessions twice a month and only for a few hours each time (it starts at 5pm). I think this was dreamed up by the police chief (they rather proudly announce on the police web site that all the churches in the city are affiliated with their chaplain corps and that they have a full time paid chaplain).
There are some minority Christians who wouldn’t be too happy either. The nearest Mormon ward is outside the area, no Quaker meetings, no Unitarian Universalist churches. I doubt there are any Orthodox churches.
Also it looks like it has been delayed.
I will note the Police Chief does seem to have been right on some issues. He has apparently restricted his officers from using their drug detecting dog unless there is probable cause that drugs are present (to the dismay of some of the officers). A high number of officers have also resigned after internal investigations were started since the chief was appointed from outside.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia a man was beheaded for committing one of the nation’s capital crimes: sorcery.
Well, so long as they have accurately identified it. Filmmaker Sandra Whitely points out that there is voodoo and there is sorcery, and far too often the two have been confused.
You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society.
Ain’t that the truth.
Nice.
You could have linked to Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, and a host of others.
…or you could have done a Rickroll and I would have completely falling into it.
I thought conservatives hated activist judges. I guess they’re OK with end-runs around state legislators when the intended outcome is more people in church.
This of course is not an activist judge legislating social policy from the bench, because as we have all been told 400 gazillion times, only liberal judges would do that.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction. All they need to do is provide secular rehab/work/volunteer options to accomplish the equivalent societal re-integration and we have the makings of a humane sentencing policy.
It’s clearly unconstitutional. However, a pragmatic atheist would take the church attendance sentence to avoid jail and show up at the church, cashless, and would catch up with any reading backlog comprising such books such as Jerry’s Why Evolution is True or other eye-catching tomes by Dawkins, Hitchens, Stenger, et al.
I wonder if the Judge is simply doing this because he wants to run for state office, and thinks this will generate some “good” publicity for him.
So if I am already a regular churchee, I can now commit non-violent crimes and just keep doin’ what I’m doin’?
I’m heading to Minette. I think I’ll steal some money first (and of course give a bit of it to the church for keeping me out of jail), then do a little shoplifting . . . maybe start a Ponzi scheme on the side, then . . . .
I also was wondering about eligibility for this if you already attend church. Surely in Alabama, that’s going to be a sizable portion of the population. Are they really so naive as to think that church attenders don’t commit crimes?
I think I would take the Church time over jail-time, or, since I’m broke, the fine. Yes, it’s stupid, yes it must be stopped, but when standing before such a nutcase in court, I would simply accept this as an opportunity to have some fun at the expense of the faithful. I would attend the church, sing my hymns, PRAISE JESUS in as loud a voice as I could. I would be the MOST ANNOYING Christian in church, and at the end would request that I speak to the congregation to tell them of my reform. Upon approaching the pulpit, I would address them all, with my thumb firmly holding up my nose as I shouted “Psyche” and performed something approximating the Snoopy dance. I would have my freedom from Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday I would have my hour of entertainment. How could that possibly be punishment!?
What disgusts me the most is that 56 “pastors” were consulted as if they have any qualifications to do anything but read the Bible, never mind that they ignored the mosques and the synagogues and the Italian eateries, this is ALABAMA after all. This is one of the most annoying faults of our society in that many give these nimrod’s too much of a standing. With a few dollars and some (tax exempt) rent money, I could open a church and become an ordained priest. I could call my church the “Holy Trinity of the Word of Jesus on the Cross shouting Eloi! Eloi! unto the seat of our Lord the Father and all his Angels and Stuff” and then hold up the Bible in front of my congregation and say “So speaketh our Lord who speaketh about the Son and how He gave that Son to die for our Sins and Stuff and the Blood of Jesus saves you 25% at the Berean Bookstore and hallelujah amen.” And I’m sure I would get an “Amen” back! Then I could tell them that the Lord sayeth to cut all their long hair and the next week they would show up with bowl cuts. All because I’m some jerk standing in front of the room with a Bible in my hand! (This would be a fascinating experiment, Penn and Teller really ought to get on that!) Have you ever noticed that the assholes picketing for WBO are PERFECTLY normal looking people? If Fred Phelps had a completely different outlook on life, those SAME people would be picketing anti-LGBT activites! THIS IS WHY THEY CALL THEMSELVES SHEEP!
“You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society,” he said.
Well, “You show me ten inmates and I’ll show you eight who have fallen in love with Jesus!” I say.
CAN I GET A HALLELUJAH! Ahem… sorry, stepping down now.
X-D
or should I say: 🙂
Pardon my language, but bloody ridiculous!
My take on this is that a year of church could substitute for a year in jail… if the prisoner weren’t allowed to leave the church. At all.
Reading the comments above, the potential for unintended consequences is wide and deep.
I wonder how long until they experience the revelation that this is a bad idea.
They must be getting desperate for dwindling Church membership numbers. Only yesterday I saw a notice outside a church that said FOUR churches were meeting at this property! They can’t afford 4 lots of rent.
When I was at a boarding school in the late 60’s we were forced to go to church on Sunday mornings. We universally hated it (far more interested in girls, rock music and the summer of love).
We staged an early incarnation of flash mobs and congregated in rows at the back of the congregation. During the hymns we sang as loudly, tunelessly, flat and atonally as we possibly could. The resultant racket was appalling.
After about three months of this the vicar had had enough and asked the school to make the forced march attendance to goddist indoctrination voluntary rather than mandatory.
Result!