Holy Crap: Because, You Know, … Jesus Edition
Jesus took a real beating in the Bible Belt this week.
First you have county clerks in Florida refusing to perform their duties in Jesus’ name amen.
If same-sex marriage is allowed, Duval Clerk of Courts Ronnie Fussell, Clay Clerk Tara Green and Baker Clerk Stacie Harvey will have no choice but to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. But to avoid performing ceremonies for them, these clerks have decided to end all courthouse weddings.
Love one another, y’all.
Then there’s the shootin’ minister. This is one odd story.
So there’s the minister of Windsor Hills Baptist Church, Tom Vineyard, in Oklahoma City.
Vineyard is an advocate of gun rights. He wrote an open letter in 2011 to Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty, criticizing statements the chief made supporting stricter gun registration laws.
Windsor Hills Baptist Church also has offered gun training sessions for its members.
That’s kinda weird but what the hell, it’s Oklahoma. But even in Oklahoma, they called this guy and his church “controversial” for their emphasis on firearm training even for church youth.
So last Saturday afternoon, Vineyard gets a call from his home alarm company that motion had been detected at his house. Instead of calling the police, Vineyard rushes home, heart pounding in excitement no doubt, and finds an unarmed 14 year old African American male in his home hiding in a closet.
Vineyard says the unarmed 14 year old attacked him so he had no choice but to shoot him dead.
Prosecutor David Prater said the use of deadly force by Vineyard, pastor of the Windsor Hills Baptist Church, was “completely legitimate.”
And there’s this ….
CBS affiliate KWTV reports that a warning on the pastor”s front door reads: “Nothing on this property is worth your life.”
Well, obviously not.
Thou shalt not kill, y’all.
Thanks to Brian and Mike for the heads up.
An 18-year-old Hispanic guy walks into the emergency room of the Sunnyside Washington Community hospital, blows a hole in the roof with his shotgun and demands to see a cop. Oddly enough, even though the hospital is in a known hotbed of right-wing nutjobs, the police managed to arrest him without hurting him.
In Oklahoma, I suspect they would have plugged him before he even got out of his car.
1CBS affiliate KWTV reports that a warning on the pastor”s front door reads: “Nothing on this property is worth your life.”
I shudder to think what the good pastor has for a “welcome” mat. Probably a round one that looks like a land mine.
2“Nothing on this property is worth your life.”
Nothing on it was worth shooting the kid, either. If there’s a god, I hope he tells Preacher Triggerhappy that in clear and certain terms.
The kid attacked him and he had to shoot… I’ve heard that before, and it was a blatant lie then.
Do these people EVER read their Bibles? Maybe the “turn the other cheek” part rather than some “all guns blazing” verse that they made up themselves?
3Must be a lot of paperwork overworking these 3 county clerks!
4Baker Co has on average 46 people, per square mile!
Clay County has on average 296 people, per square mile and,
Duval County has a average of 964 people, per square miles!
If was part of a gay couple who wanted to get married in one of these 3 counties, I’d make sure I had the ceremony on the courthouse steps and after it was over I would shower the Clerk of the Court with many thanks, by naming him/her many time’s again and again!
Has the Second Coming been cancelled? The gun humping preachers sure act like they’ve given up on the prospect.
5I guess “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” is what passes for Christian values these days.
6Obviously, he didn’t realize that his statement on the door could be interpreted both ways. Nothing on his property is worth killing for. Maybe we should just stop mincing words and start a movement to repeal the second amendment.
7So often, preachers like Tom Vineyard complain that they can’t get a granite monument of the 10 Commandments on their local courthouse steps, or a nativity scene at the public library.
Maybe we should offer to provide his church with a flashing neon sign that only displays one commandment 24/7: “Thou shall not kill.”
8How about ‘beat your swords into plowshares’?
9i marry folks at the hall of records in norwalk, ca. we don’t do ceremonies at city hall. i am a volunteer deputy commissioner of civil marriages. (nice title, huh?) i am thrilled to marry anyone who comes in front of me with the proper paperwork and a person to marry. it is an honor to be part of their lives going forward. let these asshat clerks in florida be stupid, it is their loss. the people who come before me in my little chapel give me something these folks will never know, satisfaction in a job well done and well appreciated. it is magic work that i do, i transform the single and alone into a couple with one soul.
10If nothing on the property was worth the kid’s life then why did he feel the need to kill the kid?
How many unarmed kids did Jesus kill?
11This is how the world ends (for a 14-year old black kid hiding in a closet). Not with a whimper, but with a bang. Disgusting that this is a pastor with a flock.
12Rick, your idea for a neon sign needs to be duplicated on the steps of the Pentagon, Congress and the US Supreme Court. “Thou shall not kill.” And, for sure, those with the power to stop the killing certainly need to stop killing, while using our good names.
13and the police only have the killer’s word that there was a fight that caused him to shoot and kill a 14 year old child. It boggles my mind that it can be so easy to commit heinous crimes once your victim is black and dead.
New Year,same old problems. Does anything ever change?
14You are then fired for not doing your job. Go seek employment elsewhere.
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. “Personally it would go against my beliefs to perform a ceremony that is other than that.”
15The value of the life of a person of color in oklahoma is the price of the paper the prosecutor used to exculpate the ‘preacher’ who was judge, jury & high executioner [since the state takes too long].
The value of the standards of the County Clerks in Florida is lower than those who they refuse to fully serve. To deny the whole as an application of prejudice and discrimination would be cause to recall in our County in Florida.
16Well actually that aint no such commandment that says thou shalt not kill. All the buyBull scholars I’ve read all say that the original hebrew as reflected in the tora says the word used means something more like murder rather than kill. This seems correct since as soon as the mythic moses gave them the commandments, the hebrews promptly committed genocide, which is one hell of a lot of killing.
So since as you all know, unarmed kids always attack men with guns, the Liar4jesus was justified in killing his attacker.
17But he’s such a NICE MAN!
18just don’t blame Jesus. Look, we weren’t there and our 15 year old (only 1 yr older) grandson is the tallest man in the family with the brain of a fifteen year old. I doubt he’d act like that kid but we don’t know. What i object to is keeping guns around at all. I object to keeping so many rich playthings that a regular lock or two on a door won’t keep one secure. Why did they need a security system? or a gun? Preachers must be wealthier than they were when my daddy was one. Lay not up treasures on earth and all that.
19@ Cath Riley: the JP that married me and my Mike remembered us years later and was very pleased to know our marriage was still progressing 🙂 her name was Carolyn and she always beamed upon me and said she had done a good days’ work! She has since passed away; I hope many many MANY of your couples remember you as kindly as I remember her! 🙂 you are right, it IS magic!
20There is nothing in that house worth a life, then why oh why was a life taken?
This “pastor” forgets, Jesus *gave* his life that others might live, not took another’s life so that possessions might be kept. The concept of a man of God taking another life (except possibly in defense of life) is opposite my understanding of Judeo-Christianity.
21You see which side of the equation is seeking special rights-those that claim religious exemptions prevent them from treating everyone equally.
22I wonder what would happen to gay couples from Florida who travel to Oklahoma City to get married in Pastor Vineyard’s closet, and would it matter if they were black or white.
23Several Baptist Churches here in San Angelo offer firearms training for members of their congregations. The preachers have voiced their fears that the current administration in Washington may attempt to squash their religious freedoms. Playing the victims again.
24Angelo, doesn’t everybody know that guns and religion go together? During World War II the phrase was “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” Today it’s morphed into “By God, I’m going to shoot you!”
25These fundy churches are better called cults.
Especially see the comments to this article. There’s more than meets the eye with Pastor Vineyard and his crew. http://www.news9.com/story/27690197/controversial-okc-pastor-identified-as-man-who-shot-and-killed-believed-intruder
Other fundy church escapades in recent years.
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/duneland/chesterton/protesters-allege-abuse-at-fairhaven-church-school/article_627d5fd5-25ad-5cfd-bd15-b6bb6c52a381.html
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/27/judge-rejects-reduced-sentence-in-former-pastors-sex-case/
http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20140708-former-pastors-trial-date-set.ece
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