All right heretics and unbelievers, prepare to feel so much safer.
The Alabama Senate has voted to allow a church to form its own police force.
Lawmakers on Tuesday voted 24-4 to allow Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham to establish a law enforcement department.
The justification for this is that Briarwood’s 4,000 member congregation needs it’s own protection. In a way, it’s an extension of what many mega-churches have done. Not only do they have their own schools, so their kids don’t have to learn anything that offends them, they also organize their own sports teams, so that their kids don’t have to play with children of … questionable character. Or color. Many such churches have their own exercise areas, their own social clubs, their own “coffee shops” and “neighborhood cafes.”
Everything about these churches is designed to insulate them from the surrounding community. So giving them the authority to enforce—or not enforce—their own laws probably seems like the next logical step. After all, who ever heard of a large religious organization covering up crimes or practicing selective enforcement?
Police experts have said such a police department would be unprecedented in the U.S.
No word on whether they’ve forced the former governor to wear a big red A.