Blount County resolution is torpedoed in committee


I am sure that readers are anxious to know what happened last night at the meeting of Blount County, TN where a county commissioner Karen Miller was going to propose a resolution pointing out to god that their county had nothing to do with approving same-sex marriage and asking god to spare them from his inevitable wrath.

It was oddly anti-climactic. By a vote of 10-5 on a purely procedural measure, the entire agenda was rejected and the meeting ended abruptly, to the surprise and bafflement of a large crowd that came for the meeting.

In comments after the meeting, it became clear that the chair of the 21-member county commission Jerome Moon wanted to have nothing to do with Miller’s resolution and was trying to prevent it coming up for even a debate and vote. I suspect that he will be first in line for the inevitable godly smiting, because god hates it when people use arcane parliamentary maneuvers to thwart his will.

Miller seemed upset and blind-sided by what happened, no doubt because she is more familiar with the Bible rather than Robert’s Rules of Order, but Gwen Schablik, area committee chair for the Tennessee Equality Project, was encouraged by what happened.

Comments

  1. flex says

    The article included the information that the Mayor may call a special meeting of the Commissioners, and if he does so, he sets the agenda. So the other business on the commissions agenda will be dealt with promptly.

    I wouldn’t say that the resolution died in committee though. It looks like any commissioner can submit an agenda item, so there wasn’t a committee per se. The other way to handle it would have been to approve an amended agenda with that item removed. That might have been the chair’s second line of defense to prevent the resolution from being discussed.

    But if the agenda can’t be agreed upon, the meeting doesn’t happen.

  2. Chiroptera says

    …no doubt because she is more familiar with the Bible rather than Robert’s Rules of Order

    Actually, most fundamentalists are no more familiar with their Bible than they are with Robert’s Rules of Order. (I bet they think “motion to adjourn cannot be debated” is in Leviticus.)

  3. raven says

    They might be getting the idea that god hates fundie xians.

    God is in charge and everything happens for a reason. And South Carolina, a state overrun with fundies, just got slammed by record flooding.

    The lesson here is clear. Blount county should stop bothering god and hope he wrecks some other place.

  4. raven says

    This doesn’t even make sense from a fundie xian doctrinal viewpoint.

    Their claim is that god is omniscient, all knowing. He already knows everything, including the negligible role of Blount county, Tennessee in anything that has happened in the last 2 centuries.

    What it is really is just xians advertising their ignorance and hates. Which is also unnecessary. We already know that.

  5. brucegee1962 says

    I wonder if the crowds of people in the council chamber were fundies there to support the measure, reasonable types opposed to it, or media types hoping to see a good circus?

  6. moarscienceplz says

    We’re here to serve everybody.

    -Karen Miller

    Ms Miller, I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

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