Eh, threaten me then. I don't post enough to care about what anyone else here has to say. The ACLU is a bunch of crybabies in my opinion. Bear in mind, my opinion means as little in the grand scheme of things as the next person's, but it's my opinion none the less.

Don't like my opinion? Go screw yourself! Preferably with a garden spade!

London, Ky is no metropolis brimming with diversity. It's a one-horse town in the middle of the sticks, population 5K'ish.

Their police station probably uses a broom closet as a drunk tank, then calls in the state boys to haul evil-doers to a proper cell two hours away. The judge probably agrees that this is a waste of resources for Little Billy burnin' one down at the creek.

It sounds like his heart is in the right place, and I'm the first to agree that non-violent drug offenders should not be jailed (in many cases at least). However, there must be other positive, supportive communities that are not religiously based that can be offered instead. Also, I'm not sure a kid busted with a gram of pot really needs to go to church, anymore then he needs to go to rehab.

I also fully agree with foxy_canuck. If I was a church-goer I probably wouldn't want my services to turn into an extension of NA or AA, with people running in and out to smoke, whispering, and trying to get their card signed.

They alredy do that for alcohol. Ever look at the 12 step program? One of the steps is accepting God.

Teekno-so you think it is OK for the gov't to say go to church or go to Jail???? Since those are the choices. You are an idiot

Ghare, Zazz & all you 12-step bashers
you can get plenty of poontang at a 12 step meeting, too

/pootsie is evidence that a 12 step program works
//for me at least
///plus got me some
////still battling addiction to slashes

It disturbs me when religion is seen to imply morality and vice versa.

I would think he has a better shot at learning to be a better person at just about any "worship" service than he does in jail.

Why not offer the alternative of enrolling in local civics and ethics classes instead?


Because that wouldn't be free.

I haven't read the article yet, but so far it seems to me this should have a hero tag.

Isn't this awfully rude to the law abiding citizens who choose to got to church? I mean, who wants to say, "yep, my church has drug dealers"?

My church loves any opportunity to reach out to people who need help the most. Drug dealers would be welcomed there, although it would be better if they were there by choice rather than force.

All you're doing is substituting one opiate for another.

"I don't think there's a church-state issue, because it's not mandatory and I say worship services instead of church."

Wow, this guy's a genius! Why doesn't he just call the drug and alcohol offenders "consciousness alterers" and let them go completely? We can change reality itself by just giving things new names!

/isn't buying it; has read Orwell

I like it.

Kid goes to Church, learns that God made the heavens and the Earth, and the Pot he got busted for smoking, realizes that Pot is a gift from the Lord, learns charity and to love his fellow man, shares his Pot with member of the congregation, the Christians get stoned, realize, Pot really isn't all that bad, Ben and Jerry's tastes good when you're toasted, Badabing ... Blue State in the South.

How about we just make drugs like Marijuana legal?

/Not a drug user

A Kentucky judge has been offering some drug and alcohol offenders the option of attending worship services instead of going to jail or rehab -- a practice some say violates the separation of church and state.

No shiat, ya think?

Marijuana is a plant, not a drug ... it grows naturally in nature, not in a lab.

Still love the Fundie's explanation that Marijuana wasn't created by God, since it comes out of the ground it's from Satan ... Oh no! The Devil's in your 'taters too!

piratelife420

Oh, it's much worse than that... I could handle passive apathy sort of stuff. In my experience drug users forced to be at church are more agressively antagonistic.

jst3p
If they aren't there by choice it's not a real great outreach opportunity, it's more like babysitting. You could probably do more effective outreach work by visiting them in prison.

I'd opt for jail. It's just like church, but without the sermons.

The U.S. Government will never give up on the war on drugs, since it generates some $75B-$100B a year in taxes used to pay the salaries of more cops, DEA agents, building federal prisons, judges, bailifs, court-appointed attorneys, councilors, etc., etc., etc. In case it slipped everyones mind, the U.S. has more citizens in prison than any other nation in the world (see http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf if curious) - it's big business to them.

This is so clearly a violation of the separation of church and state, the ACLU probably won't have to get involved - since, for example, I suspect the judge involved would have an issue if the individual wants to attend, say, the church of Satan, or a Wicca meeting, or as was already astutely pointed out, those individuals who don't beleive in a god.

Of course, why we have these stupid laws in the first place is another entire thread (and been farked over far too many times already)

//Looking for another country to escape the facist states of amerika

If they aren't there by choice it's not a real great outreach opportunity, it's more like babysitting. You could probably do more effective outreach work by visiting them in prison.

Agreed, different situation would make a favorable outcome more likely, but it still is an opportunity.

I only started going to church so that my wife would watch football with me and I am a Christian today, so you never know.

Forget the First Amendment. This is just dumb. Attending "worship services," no matter what religion, to avoid jail time is not going to get you off your drug habit. If the judge really cares about these defendants' personal well being, he should require them to get rehab.

JackassBlack: Still love the Fundie's explanation that Marijuana wasn't created by God,


It wasn't because there is no god.

/flamin got my chips cashed in. keep flamin, like the do-dah man...together, more or less in line, just keep flamin on.

BigTuna:

Same in Texas. I went to a meeting once. They are a religious organization, no question.

Wow, you went to one meeting and you're a friggin expert?

I went to AA for years, while they do use the words "Higher Power" in their program, I would hardly call them a religious group. In all of their literature I can only remember one context in which the word God is used, and that was in the context of "God as you understand him".

A cult of disfunctional individuals maybe, but not a religious organization.

This judge is an asshat, and he's abusing his authority to manipulate people into attending religious services. Now, were he to allow them other choices also, like volunteer service or drug rehab maybe it wouldn't be so blatant of an abuse. But to simply say "go to church or go to jail" will not stand any level of constitutional test.

stixx:

They alredy do that for alcohol. Ever look at the 12 step program? One of the steps is accepting God.

1.) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.) Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3.) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4.) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.) Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6.) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7.) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8.) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9.) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10.) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11.) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12.) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Now if you think of the context in which the program asks you to accept "God", it's not so religious. God as you understand him could be a friggin doorknob, as a matter of fact it was for me for a while.

I'm not defending AA, just throwing my $.02 into the mix, which has lots of half-truths and B.S., but after all, this is Fark.

I.M.

I would think he has a better shot at learning to be a better person at just about any "worship" service than he does in jail.

Probably true. I just don't like that it is being offered as the only option, when I don't think it is the best one. Religion has the potential to do good by teaching morality, but why not skip the supernatural/mystical belief system and get to the main issue, which is personal ethics? My experience with organized religion is that it teaches people to be followers, rather than developing their own moral compass and learning to think for themselves.

Why not offer the alternative of enrolling in local civics and ethics classes instead?
Because that wouldn't be free.

Also true, but I bet the cost still compares well against keeping someone in jail.

Mandatory 12 step program without non-religious alternative violates First Amendment

/for me, IAAL means "I AM a lawyer"

Corvus:

Also it's not MANADATORY to pay taxes you can just go to jail.

Remember if you are being mugged at gun point it's not mandatory for you to give them the money you can always pick to get shot.


/golf clap

Irony candidate: "I hate the ACLU and you can go to hell if you disagree with my opinion."

12.) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.


I've never quite understood how one can mandate a 'spiritual awakening'.

thekarmikbob: This is so clearly a violation of the separation of church and state

To play devil's advocate:

How does this violate "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"?

My experience with organized religion is that it teaches people to be followers, rather than developing their own moral compass and learning to think for themselves.


My experience with people in general is that they are followers. People who think for themselves are a rare breed both in the church and out. Churches don't teach people to be followers, they just (usually) give them a decent direction to be the follower that they already are.


Also true, but I bet the cost still compares well against keeping someone in jail.

Free is still better than cheaper, IMHO. I would be opposed to making this mandatory, but if you are going to jail anyway and this is an option you can't argue that you are being "forced" to go.

The muging analogy above is completely inaccurate unless you assumed the person was going to be shot anyway to begin with.

damn my lack of HTML skills. Only the word "are" was supposed to be bold.

See someone needs to explain this to me. "Worship service" Worship who or what? Frankly it doenst matter. This is coersion.

Its grounds for appeal of the sentence.

6.) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Nah, AA doesn't sound like a religion at all. Nope, not one bit. Not one iota...

'Cause believing some invisible being can wave their magic wand and fix you isn't religious thinking.

Anyone else seen the Penn & Teller Bullshiat episode where they debunk AA? They concluded that a) It's no more effective at curing alcoholism than just quitting on your own; b) it's a religion.

Separation of Church and State Surrenders...?

Remember if you are being mugged at gun point it's not mandatory for you to give them the money you can always pick to get shot.


To expand on what I said above.

The guy was going to jail regardless. He also has the option to go to church instead. This was becasuse he choose to break the law.

The person in your example deserves no punishment and either choice is detremental. The comparison is useless.

I love how the 12 steppers explain the shakey 5% recovery rate for AA as, it's not the programs fault, those who 'fail' didn't "work their program/do their steps/call their sponsor/read their Big Book" enough...

AA is a great example of when the cure is worse than the disease.

i just think its funny how people still think the government gives a fark about separation of church and state. isnt it obvious that those 2 got fused together a long time ago. look at our current president and how many things he does in the name of christianity. silly christians.

Bump
You'll notice I said it works for me. For you, or anyone else, I don't know and can't say. Anyone tells you different is full of shiat as you have duly noted.

Jesus was gonna come back from the dead
But then he got high
He'd tell us what it was he really said
But then he got high
So he's staying up in Heaven instead
And do you know why? (Why, man?)

Cuz Jesus got high!
Cuz Jesus got high!
Cuz Jesus got high!

La-da-da-da-da-dah

One of the main flaws in ThatDevGuy's scenario as stated seems to have gone unrebutted:

No, going to church and being monitored and surrounded by supporting people would not stop the kid from stealing a pound of heroin. Marijuana, maybe. Not heroin, unless the kid were dealing it and not using it at all.

Heroin is very strongly physically addictive. Mere love and support can't cure addiction. Addicts are compelled to feed their addictions. In some cases (heroin mainliners included), failure to do so can cause withdrawal symptoms that can often be fatal in and of themselves - meaning that they can die from not taking the drug! (Alcohol can do this, too [the D.T.'s]. But not marijuana.)

I'm a little iffy on the usage of church as an option... how about secular drug programs? Dont just give a religious option...

But I do commend the judge for not filling jails with minor drug offenders. I stress minor, however. I dont want a trafficker to go to rehab, but some guy caught with a gram of weed doesn't need to go to jail over it.

COMALite J
So, why is it that someone who survives withdrawal goes back to using? At that point they are beyond the physical dependency. So, there is more to addiction than the physical.
P.S. marjuana withdrawal just takes so long that it naturally weens you, while opiates and ETOH are processed more quickly

Get-out-of-jail free for going to church? Any church? You betcha!

pootsie Please forgive my somewhat cynical perspective on the program - again, if it helps some people, then great - seriously. It's just that my particular experience was one of meetings filled with over zealous extremists who preached on and on about how all drugs are bad and must be completely avoided,... then they'd slip outside for another cigarette.

So, why is it that someone who survives withdrawal goes back to using? At that point they are beyond the physical dependency. So, there is more to addiction than the physical.


Because addiction to opiates is very much like a romance.

All in all I think it's a good idea that's a bit bogged down by semantics. I read it as, either go to prison, or join a grp of supportive individuals and see a different side of life. Because the judge is a strong christian, his experience is that a church is that place, but it does not preclude other areas.
Sure rehab would be nice, but someone has to pay for it. Counseling is nice, but it's pretty much all 1-on-1, or in very small grps which doesn't allow for the familial feeling.
Basically a religious organization, in most cases, happens to fit all the criteria to make it a perfect place for alternative sentencing. Offering structure along with support and hopefully expanding a person outlook on life (not necessarily in a religious sense).