A commissioner of Lincoln County, North Carolina, Carrol Mitchem, was told by the courts that he could not continue to require sectarian Christian prayer to open meetings of the commission. This prompted him to open his mouth and let the dumbassery flow, like a rippling river of sewage and ignorance.
Changing rules on the way the United States was founded, Constitution was founded (I don’t like),Mitchem told the paper.I don’t need no Arab or Muslim or whoever telling me what to do or us here in the county what to do about praying. If they don’t like it, stay the hell away.Mitchem echoed that sentiment to WBTV on Friday.
I ain’t gonna have no new religion or pray to Allah or nothing like that,Mitchem said. He added that anyone who doesn’t want to hear a Christian prayer can leave andwait until we’re done praying.
We’re fighting Muslims every day. I’m not saying they’re all bad,Mitchem said.They believe in a different God than I do. If that’s what they want to do, that’s fine. But, they don’t need to be telling us, as Christians, what we need to be doing. They don’t need to be rubbing our faces in it.
But rubbing everyone else’s faces in his vile religion, well, that’s perfectly OK.
Not only does this man vote, he’s active in local politics. We’re doomed.
The ultimate irony of course is that it’s the “same” god.
Wait, why did this become about Muslims?
He really did let the dumbassery flow.
jonmelbourne, #1
Yeah, yet another case of how little about religion these religious people know.
The other irony is that the same reasoning he used to not to listen to prayers from other religions, is the same reasoning nobody should have to listen to Xian prayers. The claim that this is a Xian nation is simply a lie. Nowhere is it codified in the constitution, and the first amendment is clear on no state religion.
PZ – you’re a bit late on this one. The link you posted was from May and there’s been more on this story:
NC county commissioner storms out of meeting during Muslim prayer: ‘I don’t need no Arab telling me what to do’
Same guy (Mitchem) stormed out of a meeting on Monday because the Board was opening their meeting with an Islamic invocation because they decided after he ran his mouth off back in May that they had to let everyone participate or else he’d opened them up to lawsuits. (Whereas if he’d kept his mouth shut with a “no comment” and didn’t try to make a Culture War thing out of it there probably wouldn’t have been a problem because no Muslims were actually trying to get to say a prayer in his meetings – it was a different county that fought a court battle and lost that he was asked by a local reporter to comment on. It may have been years before there were enough Muslims in his county to actually decide to make an issue out of it.)
Anyway it turns out that the board will now open their meetings with a “moment of silence” because of this asshole. So hey – his assholery did a bit of good in the world. (It’s my believe that all government meetings should actually open with the same invocation – “Let’s hurry up and get started.” But failing that, if we must start a meeting with some useless nonsense a moment of silence is a better approach.)
So he’s henotheistic?
I can’t imagine the objection to “moment of silence” over spoken prayer. When I prayed, I preferred doing so in silence, where I could concentrate on my own prayer. Rather than being continually distracted by a rote prayer. Is he saying he wants to pray but needs a coach to continually remind him of every word due to poor memory? And must everyone “sing along” with him?
I know choruses are popular in Sunday Service, but Mr. Carrol Mitchem, your God isn’t swayed by the number of people chanting simultaneously. I’d like to remind this guy about that line in the Bible quoting Jesus himself about how prayer should only be done in private, to make other hear your prayers is itself sinful.
I must ask (as it has been asked thousands of times), why do “good Christians” so often skip over the lines they find “inconvenient”?
(1) I’ll bet Mitchem pronounces Arab as “AY-rab.” (2) Debating whether or not Xians & Muslims worship the same god is like debating whether the Mickey Mouse of “Steamboat Willie” & the Mickey Mouse of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” are really the same mouse.
And another thing: Mitchem & his ilk need to study & meditate over Matthew 6: 5-6.
re Georgia Sam@8
Thank you for the reference, to what I was referring, where I lacked providing actual index.
Yes. Mitchem especially, should study this sentence and notice the source.
[snark]I guess he’ll just dismiss it as “just words from some vagabond Jew. Why should I care? He didn’t even speak English, we had to translate the stuff he said to all those other Jews.”[/snark]
@Georgia Sam #7:
Obviously they are not, and the Lord Mickey’s superlative performance in ‘The Sorceror’s Apprentice’ is a stunning allegory which teaches us so much more about the greater meaning of life than that pathetic scribble of a mouse does in ‘Steamboat Willie’. Die, heretic!
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Look, someone had to do it…
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Matt Taibbi and his followers on Twitter have created a drinking game for the debate tonight so there will actually be a whole lot of people enjoying this thing.
What is interesting is the Fundies have been trying to get their god into the constitution since forever (one account of a group active in 1863) — and they’ve failed every time.
Pretty pathetic for the supposed “creator” of the universe.
Way to uphold the dumb redneck stereotype, Mr. North Carolina Republican.