Holy Crap: Pray and Drive Edition
Accidents waiting to happen by the busload.
Oh Missississippissi …
House members on Thursday passed a bill exempting mid-sized church buses from the state’s commercial driver’s license requirements, prompting one lawmaker to call it the “Jesus Take the Wheel Act.”
The bill, HB 132, would help congregations lacking a CDL-certified driver transport up to 30 passengers in a church-owned vehicle. Although applying equally to all churches, it’s primarily aimed at smaller congregations with fewer members and financial resources.
And they promise that if the driver is unqualified, they will only hit Muslim cars.
Thanks to chloe bear and Ralph for the heads up.
Hereabouts the vans that transport day laborers all over the place do not have CDL drivers but they damn sure have to be insured to the hilt. How does that play with small congregations?
1Well-meaning, but ignorant of the consequences.
2A little traveling music for these vans
3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khf3t1GQZMw
What’s the odd’s the good Representative owns or has a close family member without a CDL and wants to use a bigger Jesus-Mobile, to get the flock to church on time?
http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/members/house/johnson.xml
4Cool Hand Luke strumming and singing about his “Plastic Jesus!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNtftzGqrmY
5Do they also just decide not to bother about drivers’ licenses for kids in big families because they can’t afford them or the extra insurance? Look, I know lots of folks who would agree with this and actually I’m sympathetic with them but honey, bus drivers have a huge responsibility. Oh I forgot. It’s not really a bus.
6I didn’t know that the Darwin Awards offered group discounts.
7Thanks for the link, Fred F. One of my all-time favorite films.
8Wouldn’t Jesus ride in on a donkey?
I guess Mississippi House members realize small congregations wouldn’t have a safe means of applying their WWJD bumper stickers to the … backside… of their …
Safety first!
9Yet another case of “Oh, the laws don’t apply to them, they’re religious.”
And some of those folks are the ones screaming about gays wanting “special privileges” because they think the 14th Amendment on equal protection of the laws should apply to everybody.
I WISH the IRS would get off its cowardly behind and go after preachers who blatantly defy the regulation that you can only have nonprofit status if you don’t advocate a political position or tell people who to vote for/against. The preachers even announced a day to do it en masse, but no action on these scofflaws.
10S Now, of course, any mistakes would ounds like a dandy idea.not involve drivers of other vehicles, just the Jebus bus, so it could fall over an embankment, etc. Moving 25 or 30 fundie souls closer to God is just perfect.
11Special Offer!
Buy one of these today …
http://www.amazon.com/Accoutrements-11093-Dashboard-Jesus/dp/B000CIS34U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424373457&sr=8-1&keywords=plastic+jesus
… and they’ll throw in free a set of 4 bald tires and a roll of duct tape to wrap around leaky radiator hoses!
12Rhea, honey I agree but what is the deal with the gummint that they have a huge hiring freeze with the IRS and folks there (we have a neighbor who works for the IRS) do not have enough staff to handle the tax stuff. Sounds to me like somebody doesn’t like the IRS and isn’t helping them pay the bills.
13It is so common to read about a church bus in an accident. There should be a survey.
14So any opposition to this religious exemption would be considered as further evidence of the “War on Christianity?” Good grief!
15Thanks for the link, UmtpyDump. Dashboard Jesus is just what those church vans need and the price is right… a lot less than that there commercial drivers’ license. ‘Course there’s no guarantee you’ll make it to your earthly destination.
16Perhaps they should call it the “Nearer my God” Act. They can play “Coming In On a Wing and a Prayer” while driving…
17Maryelle, unfortunately there are a few one-star reviews of the plastic Jesus on Amazon. There’s one in particular that you should know about, from Pink Amy of Conshohocken, PA:
“My jesus was defective. He kept preaching kindness and acceptance.Then he got on a kick taking care of the poor and elderly and mentioned something about actions speaking louder than words. Finally, refused to tell me what parts of the bible I should reference when explaining my hatred for homosexuals. He kept telling me the bible says nothing about hating gay people. These “messages” are in direct conflict to everything my GOP congressmen have voted for, so I know this jesus is broken.”
18Back in the seventies, I drove a church bus. My qualifications for this task were….volunteering….then they let me teach Sunday school..same qualifications. This church had 7 busses and collected about 200 children. The pastor only wanted to know two things, how many kids did we pick up and how much money did we collect from them. This was the begining of my dissatisfaction with religion.
19Thanks for that quote, Umptydump.
20In the 70’s my ex worked a lot of ER shifts, one of the sad things was the number of (mostly Catholic) people who had eyes ruptured by landing on the plastic “protection” Virgin Marys and Jesus’ –blinded by the very thing they were looking to for help.
21It was ironic and sad. I have my own collection of religious figurines, “Buddha-soap-on-a-rope”, things like that. My favorite statue being “Buddy Christ” and his stuffed animal cohort, “Mooby the Golden Calf” or perhaps the fuzzy red 2ft tall “Sacred Heart of Jesus” piggy bank…it’s a toss up. It is the physical embodiment of one of our household sayings,” Jesus Saves, Moses invests” since the bank is stored right next to our shofar and havdalah spice box and candle. Signs, symbols, magic, witchcraft and religions–all of them intermingled are America at it’s finest! I am not interested in a war on anyone, too bad the Christians are interested (to “save” me) in being at war with me!