LAW WOULD LET RESTRICTED LICENSE HOLDERS DRIVE FOR RELIGIOUS REASONS
There’s a great scene in the movie There’s Something About Mary in which Ben Stiller’s character attempts to relieve himself in the bushes outside a South Carolina Interstate rest area.
Unwittingly, Stiller’s character winds up in the middle of a mass anti-indecency sting – one targeting homosexuals who were on the grounds en masse performing fellatio on one another.
“I was peeing,” Stiller’s character pleads as S.C. Highway Patrolmen descend upon the scene.
Soon the refrain is taken up by all those around him.
“That’s what I was doing,” one states. “I was just peeing.”
“I was peeing too!” another says.
“Yeah, yeah,” a law enforcement officer says. “I’m sure you were all just pissing.”
Cops should expect to hear a similarly credulity-challenged refrain coming from South Carolinians with suspended drivers’ licenses – assuming S.C. Rep. Nathan Ballentine (RINO-Richland) gets his way.
Ballentine is attempting to sneak the following proviso into the upcoming state budget …
82.9. (DMV: Church Activities) With the funds authorized to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the department shall include Church activities in the acceptable activities outlined for approved travel by holders of restricted licenses. This approval shall be given if the restricted licensee proves to the department’s satisfaction that the restriction interferes or substantially interferes with the licensee’s ability to attend Church activities.
Yeah …
So … guess who is included in the “restricted license” pool? People convicted of driving under the influence. In other words Ballentine wants to give the very folks who shouldn’t be on the road in the first place more excuses to drive.
And he’s trying to do it by slipping some language into a back door budget line … as opposed to having a public discussion of the merits of his proposal.
Which brings us to this point … how exactly is law enforcement supposed to tell if someone is driving to or from “church activities?”
And assuming the excuse is legitimately applied, isn’t this a form of discrimination against the non-religious? Shouldn’t “restricted license” holders who are atheists get equal time?
Sheesh …
For a lawmaker who is carrying around such a large knoggin’ on his shoulders, one would expect Ballentine to have thought this idea through a little more thoroughly …
40 comments
Drunk drivers, reckless drivers, speeders… Just the kind of people you want to be driving to church functions! They need the most help, after all, correct?
On a related note, maybe that church picnic should be far, faaaar away from the road…
What if they attend the church of Satan, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Everything must be equal.
TBG enjoys a glass or 6 with his pasta.
Maybe the church bus can stop by and pick them up.
The Koch brothers probably have a fleet with complimentary videos of Rush Limbaugh ready and waiting to take them to the church of CATO.
FITS whole view of reality seems to drift in and out of movie characters and plots.
FITS said he formed his idea of modern-day race relations from watching the film: Mississippi Burning. His perception of Thanksgiving is based on some Meatball-type movie spoof that vilifies early settlers searching for freedom, as fodder for savage and ignorant Indians…
So now FITS is conceptualizing his understanding of DUI law based on Ben Stiller, and (always of course) over-reacted-to homosexual activity…in his effort to bash people who believe in Jesus…
I guess there was no movie about slimy Trial Lawyer Todd Rutherford attacking the families who lost loved ones at the hands of Drunk Drivers, so drunk killers (and their paid apologists) are OK w/ FITS…
Thank you for your daily insights into Fits’ psyche, Ignatius.
And I got my view of romance from watching “Jailbait Babysitter” and “Games Girls Play” when I was 10 years old.
Did ya’ miss these… “High School Hellcats” + “Reform School Girl” + “Runaway Daughter”..?
If the guy is Episcopalian, then odds are he will be drinking the communion wine at church. Kind of defeats the purpose, no?
I always thought the Restricted License was the one the teenagers got that allowed them to drive unsupervised during the day, but not a night. There are already loopholes for high school athletics, band, and employment. I thought if you got convicted of DUI you got a moped.
Make them use the most dopey looking scooter made.
Is there a non-dopy looking scooter? I think not.
the key word there is “most”
Very true, but that’s a tallest-midget-in-the-circus thing…
I can’t believe you’re one of those abitrarian tallest midget conflators! Don’t you know *anything*? This is a SHORTEST midget in the circus thing!
Once again, your logic is insuperable!
I’m talking pink scooter with ribbons on the handles for the guys, and something that makes a farting sound and one’s butt look bigger for the gals.
ridin’ a likker sickle is just like screwin’ a fat girl, it’s a whole lotta fun, but you don’t want nobody seein’ you on it.
Too many beers — I know a guy who did both, and the fat girl rode one too! I’m still laughing about it….
Damn- go big or go home. That would definitely constitute what we used to call in the specops world a “hard to look cool moment.”
Humiliation just doesn’t have the same place in sentencing that it did in Salem.
Moped = Liquorcycle
They can catch a ride with someone or walk.
My church is 250 yards from my house. I used to walk to church until it appeared to everyone that I had a DUI and couldn’t drive. Now I get in my car and drive 250 yards to church.
Well that’s stupid.
I’d stride in there with a stiletto heeled Japanese escort, and I’d be dressed like Bill in Kill Bill, with cowboy boots, leather jacket, and stare down anyone that looked my way.
That’s my Maundy Thursday plan, euwe, but I will be wearing pleather. You must be a clairvoyant of sorts to know my plan. Tell me if GI Bill or Lee Deadbeat will make the playoffs against Lindsey. And will Mace get more than 1%? Will Richard Cash’s family know that he is even running for Senate if he doesn’t tell them?
And fuck you ChemicalBaths. You bring a lot to the party with the comments of a simpleton. Perhaps Big T will take you under his hot, sweaty wing.
It’s important to make a distinction between a crack dealer who needs a car to get to work and a faith healer.
I could certainly argue that the crack dealer is more productive.
We don’t want to bias outcomes based on work ethic – that would make the CEO who delegates the authority to do everything in the company he inherited from his father who is now in prison, as valuable as a farm hand who actually works 12 hours a day with calloused hands, sweating under the sun to produce food that people eventually eat.
It’s not so much what or how much “you” produce, as much as it is the fork you eat your salad with.
“DRUNK DRIVING … FOR JESUS!”
Jesus DID turn water into wine.
Ballentine is a tool, wasn’t he the doucher that wanted some mandatory football game bill. Shady move trying to slide it in on the budget back door while pretending to support the “Emma’s law” bill. Although I’ve heard he likes it backdoor?
Just another example of a legislator who, though essentially purposeless, strives to prove their relevancy to their hot suburban MILF constituency… this time through a (stupid) attempt to appear “ultra-Christian”.. haha, yeah, I Know… whatever!
“Thorry Occifer, I stink ah had too much ‘sacrament wine’.
WWJDUI?
Drunk Drivers are truly blessed
Other drivers pray that they don’t ever get hit by one
Drivers who get hit by one pray they don’t die
Relatives of those who get hit by one pray for justice
Lawyers pray they are called to represent one, not the lawyer down the street
Legislators pray for the lobbyist whose livelihood depends on one to write a fat check for their support
Babies, young kids, mommies, daddies, aunts, brothers, sisters, friends who are killed by one pray – well they can’t pray Cockroach Ballentine – they are dead, stone cold dead buried six feet under the ground never ever to be able to kneel by their bed again to say, :”Lay me down to sleep, I pray” – killed by a drunk driver who stopped by the bar for a few to celebrate the victory by his softball team sponsored by the Holy Spiritual Light of the Last Redeemer Holiness Hebrew Pentecostal AME Unification Church of Lost Souls
A team he joined in order to give him the opportunity to drive unrestricted thanks to you Cockroach Ballentine
I think if they get to drive to church then they should be required to sport the license plate that says “I believe . . . I was drunk!”
If there isn’t a church within walking distance of your house, you don’t live in South Carolina.
Um…this has nothing to do with DUI-related issues. This is a graduated license for sixteen year-old drivers–it extends the time that one can drive in the evenings due to work/school/athletics/extracurricular activities.
Try and ascertain the facts before launching a diatribe.