The history on these things is pretty clear. Forcing religion on people rarely has a happy ending. Rather than address the real issues regarding this man's return to society, the parole officer and shelter turned to an invisible man in the sky, and a magic book. A magic book with as many ways to interpret it as there are people. The people who would respond well to this, probably aren't in jail to begin with.
The Christians who are in positions of power in our judicial system think it's their ball, their bat, and their game, with rules set by them, and EVERYONE has to follow along if they want to play. Mark Janny arrives on the scene and says, "No," and winds up penalized for his having the unmitigated nerve to be DIFFERENT. Thankfully, the system isn't so saturated with believers that such a violation of civil rights can go on indefinitely without correction. This is why I personally think that ANYONE who serves in a government position needs to understand that governments operate under SECULAR law, not the law of the Bible or the Quran, and that bringing their beliefs into the equation exposes them and the system to litigation that both can do without.
That lesson hasn't been fully learned yet, but at least in this one instance, maybe a clue has been caught.
Maybe ... but if they're in a government job, and their action results in something similar to what Mark Janny encountered, they would do well to alter their behavior.
Otherwise, they may find themselves needing to refresh their resume.
Would they recognize a clue if it bit them in the ass? I'm more inclined to think they'd just double down and holler "PERSECUTION! THAT DEMON THING JUST BIT ME!! CIRCLE THE WAGONS, BRETHREN!"
They need to stop using any religious book —Bible, Quran, etc — to swear in our representatives in office. They need to take In God We Trust off our money and substitute from our Constituents the words “To Promote the General Welfare”. This religious coercion is happening in many former Confederate states too, with homeless mothers. It has to stop.
I wouldn't hold my breath. They LIKE their holy books and think they can use them to bludgeon us into compliance. As for IGWT, it wouldn't bother me at all to see the US go back to E Pluribus Unum, which while it was our unofficial motto, it was far more apropos and uniting.
We talk the talk - WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS - but rarely walk the walk. Kafka, and others, have written about this. When Law becomes absurd and violates the spirit of Justice that it's supposed to in place to protect and promote Law itself becomes something that should be discarded.
I'm no anarchist, we need law, but we should always be looking to improve it. Think about this: those lawyers, judges, parole officer all twisted the law until they could make a person suffer because god?! An imaginary being with rituals of make believe?! It's sick. Besides that, all those people felt constrained by the law, or didn't probably give a shit or even were maleficent, and just shrugged and let another Con twist in the wind.
I suspect it's less that law that is at fault here than details of how the law is to be implemented. In this case, since no one had previously complained about a Christian place of residence, nor had anyone considered the possibility of an atheist objecting, that mechanism was their go-to solution. No one bothered to think outside of their Christian box.
That's my point, there's no thinking. The law obviously is not meant to cause suffering...or is it (I give you the history of law as exhibit A).
Anyway, no thinking and just allowing process to unfold. It's like Civil Forfeiture. It was meant to collapse drug cartels and gangs in modern use, but now it's a funding machine for police. It was never improved, isn't watched over, just left to moulder until an enterprising sheriff decided he needed new wheels for the department...
This should be a warning for what happens when we allow private organizations to fill in for government. I would venture a guess that this shelter was the only option (or one of very few). And many shelters do have this requirement. We have no problem spending billions to “lock the scum up” but aren’t so keen on investing in people who have served their punishment.
Many people who aren’t criminals face a similar dilemma: Christ or the cold, because all available shelter beds require participation in religious services. Speaking as a Christian, I’m offended by people who claim to share my faith but then use it to blackmail people into adherence.
Jesus never demanded allegiance for his service. Some people offered allegiance freely because of his service.
It is true that many of these cases probably come down to a resource problem.
But not this case. In this case, Janny brought an alternative accommodation option to the parole board and they rejected it. "You break it, you buy it" is the phrase that springs to mind. If the state is going to deny a secular housing option to a parolee, then by making that denial the state puts itself on the hook to provide one.
Here is another story made worse by "Qualified Immunity". People in government service, especially law enforcement should never get immunity when they violate someone's Constitutional rights. The fact that this was invented by the Supreme Court should have been a wake up call when they did it. It showed that SCOTUS had too much power then. Today we talk about how this rogue court is making law. Well, They showed us they can remove all Constitutional protection in 1982 by simply claiming the individual who did so was too stupid to read the Constitution. I said it before, I'll say it again; people in government should take a basic test on Constitutional law. I'm not advocating for a 1000 questions on specific case law, I'm asking for questions that every 5th grader should know the answers to.
Examples:
A police officer breaks into your home and shoots your dog. The officer had no warrant and did not announce himself. Does this violate any part of the Constitution, including any amendments?
You go to vote. The election working turns you away because you look too "queer". Does this violate any part of the Constitution, including any amendments?
A man on parole is given a choice; go to a Christian church service or go back to jail. Does this violate any part of the Constitution, including any amendments? Keeping in mind that it does not matter AT ALL whether he is Christian, atheist, Muslim or Jew.
This test (in my fantasy United States of America) would be given to anyone looking to run for any office in the country, from dog catcher to President. Let the Republicans come out against that and still claim to be the party of patriots and freedom.
Let us not believe that this was true justice. Justice delayed is justice denied, and this resolution was delayed for 7 years, during 5 months of which Mr. Janny was unfairly incarcerated. A mere $100K doesn't begin to emphasize to a large state agency just how really, completely, totally WRONG it was about this.
I am sorry that he was put in prison again for not going to religious services! He's an Atheist! They owe him more money than that. His parole officer has done this before putting his own personal beliefs above what's right and what's best for others. He needs to lose his job. Now!
If I were Mr Janney I would turn around and sue Mr Gamez and the State.That was more time in prison and he should not have been there. Both Gamez and the State knew Exactly why he was back in prison.
To Mr Janny new life, may he never return to jail.
Let's hope it never happens again. But with the direction parts of this country are taking I wouldn't count on it. christians inmates have to much privileges already.
As long as there are those in government and particularly in our judicial system who think that their beliefs are the default position and therefore that they can use the system to superimpose their beliefs on others, this crap will continue.
A whole lot of hands need to be slapped and monetary penalties levied before there might be any possibility of that concept being recognized.
I might have attended the Bible study but I still would have been kicked out. I’m an atheist, but I know the Bible pretty well and would have pointed out every inconsistency and hypocrisy I could.
Thank you for sharing yet more idiocy. It’s very sad to me that so much time and effort was spent by our legal system on this issue. I’m glad he finally ended up slightly financially ahead. Curious minds want to know—are any Islamic or Judaic halfway houses?
He was jealous of the other gods worshipped by the people who lived in Israel before he told Moses and his followers to kick the earlier residents out and set up shop there. The Bible "proves" that there are other gods.
JHWH is jealous of the power and influence he/she/it/they have/has over the Jewish people. It wants to hold on to that power and continue receiving the fealty, obedience, sacrifices and bribes to which it thinks it is entitled. May I call on Homer Simpson to explain?
'Deist' is an anachronism. Back when the 'founding fathers' used it as a label, it was fashionable. The gold 'ol days when the earth was flat, germs were 200 years from becoming reality, and slavery was a thriving industry.
We had a Deist who posted regularly here at FA. Her nym was JustAnotherVoice and she was quite pleasant to talk to. Haven't heard from her since we were on Patheos.
I wonder what they would have counted as "participation". For the bible studies, bring up the more interesting passages, look Lot and hos daughters, Elisha and the bears, Judah and Tamar, etc. Ask questions of the "counselor" that show the absurdity of their faith. Would he have been required to actively participate in the worship services or could he have simply sat in the room bored out of his skull?
Of course, that doesn't address the blatant constitutional violation, but it may have been fun.
It's a bit of a jerk move. After all, the other participants in the bible study weren't the ones who made the rule - the parole officer did. So why are you ruining their event for them?
If, as a nonbeliever, you decided to go the "I'll play along" route, then I'd go all-in on doing it right. Read the passage that's given. Make cogent arguments about it, and don't flinch in talking about why you reject the theology (even if, in some cases, you might accept some of the morality, like the golden rule). If you go to faith-based counseling, be honest and forthright about your non-belief but also your willingness to work on improving yourself. Make it clear that if there's going to be an authoritarian mean-spirited jackass in the room, it's not gonna be you.
This is my perennial separation of church and state complaint. Most courts that have diversion programs for drug charges are going to involve a 12 step program and a halfway house. Both of these things are going to be operating at best with a lot of Christian signaling. But they are the options. It's enter "treatment" or serve time. At worst you might end up in a for profit demi-chtistian halfway house with a proven track record of returning folks to jail. I'd say it's the MAJORITY of the country operating this way. How these programs getting money from government is a thing, I don't understand. I know they tell you your higher power can be anything you want it to be, but that's again, not appropriate for an atheist. They don't fucking get it.
I know you're right. I do live in Kentucky. I just would like to think with the fentanyl crisis still killing people here every day, that they'd be more open to using better methods. They exist and they're in use in many parts of the state. But I think there's a real disconnect between the treatment and medication based programs available and what judges are offering folks. This is literally killing people and the fact that they are often people less likely to be religious (although those people are dying too) is starting to piss me off.
Well, judges are not immune to the sincere belief mistake of thinking 'Getting Jesus" must be effective. Or at least thinking that a treatment program with a bit of Jesus is better than a treatment program without it.
Today, for instance, judges routinely require people to attend meetings after a DUI arrest; fully 12 percent of AA members are there by court order.
*snip*
A public-relations specialist and early AA member named Marty Mann worked to disseminate the group’s main tenet: that alcoholics had an illness that rendered them powerless over booze. Their drinking was a disease, in other words, not a moral failing. Paradoxically, the prescription for this medical condition was a set of spiritual steps that required accepting a higher power, taking a “fearless moral inventory,” admitting “the exact nature of our wrongs,” and asking God to remove all character defects.
Mann helped ensure that these ideas made their way to Hollywood. In 1945’s The Lost Weekend, a struggling novelist tries to loosen his writer’s block with booze, to devastating effect. In Days of Wine and Roses, released in 1962, Jack Lemmon slides into alcoholism along with his wife, played by Lee Remick. He finds help through AA, but she rejects the group and loses her family.
*snip*
In 1970, Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa, a member of AA, persuaded Congress to pass the Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Act. It called for the establishment of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and dedicated funding for the study and treatment of alcoholism. The NIAAA, in turn, funded Marty Mann’s nonprofit advocacy group, the National Council on Alcoholism, to educate the public. The nonprofit became a mouthpiece for AA’s beliefs, especially the importance of abstinence, and has at times worked to quash research that challenges those beliefs.
In 1976, for instance, the Rand Corporation released a study of more than 2,000 men who had been patients at 44 different NIAAA-funded treatment centers. The report noted that 18 months after treatment, 22 percent of the men were drinking moderately. The authors concluded that it was possible for some alcohol-dependent men to return to controlled drinking. Researchers at the National Council on Alcoholism charged that the news would lead alcoholics to falsely believe they could drink safely. The NIAAA, which had funded the research, repudiated it. Rand repeated the study, this time looking over a four-year period. The results were similar.
After the Hughes Act was passed, insurers began to recognize alcoholism as a disease and pay for treatment. For-profit rehab facilities sprouted across the country, the beginnings of what would become a multibillion-dollar industry. (Hughes became a treatment entrepreneur himself, after retiring from the Senate.)
The history on these things is pretty clear. Forcing religion on people rarely has a happy ending. Rather than address the real issues regarding this man's return to society, the parole officer and shelter turned to an invisible man in the sky, and a magic book. A magic book with as many ways to interpret it as there are people. The people who would respond well to this, probably aren't in jail to begin with.
The people who would respond to this are the ones who want to make non belief one of their list of death penalty level crimes.
They aren’t in jail, but should be.
The Christians who are in positions of power in our judicial system think it's their ball, their bat, and their game, with rules set by them, and EVERYONE has to follow along if they want to play. Mark Janny arrives on the scene and says, "No," and winds up penalized for his having the unmitigated nerve to be DIFFERENT. Thankfully, the system isn't so saturated with believers that such a violation of civil rights can go on indefinitely without correction. This is why I personally think that ANYONE who serves in a government position needs to understand that governments operate under SECULAR law, not the law of the Bible or the Quran, and that bringing their beliefs into the equation exposes them and the system to litigation that both can do without.
That lesson hasn't been fully learned yet, but at least in this one instance, maybe a clue has been caught.
Not a single Christian will learn or change as a result of this case. Cognitive Dissonance has no place in God's realm.
Maybe ... but if they're in a government job, and their action results in something similar to what Mark Janny encountered, they would do well to alter their behavior.
Otherwise, they may find themselves needing to refresh their resume.
"Otherwise, they may find themselves needing to refresh their resume."
...to include 'Aide to Supreme Court Justice', sadly.
Would they recognize a clue if it bit them in the ass? I'm more inclined to think they'd just double down and holler "PERSECUTION! THAT DEMON THING JUST BIT ME!! CIRCLE THE WAGONS, BRETHREN!"
I can certainly guarantee you, the clue has NOT been caught.
They need to stop using any religious book —Bible, Quran, etc — to swear in our representatives in office. They need to take In God We Trust off our money and substitute from our Constituents the words “To Promote the General Welfare”. This religious coercion is happening in many former Confederate states too, with homeless mothers. It has to stop.
I wouldn't hold my breath. They LIKE their holy books and think they can use them to bludgeon us into compliance. As for IGWT, it wouldn't bother me at all to see the US go back to E Pluribus Unum, which while it was our unofficial motto, it was far more apropos and uniting.
Condition for parole in France :
Either to have a job, an internship, pursuing an education or professional training upon release.
Either to have support from their families.
Either the necessity to follow a medical treatment.
Either being willing to compensate their victims.
Either their implication in any serious project about their rehabilitation.
There is also conditions based on age (+70 years old), pregnancy and some others. Notice what is missing.
The horror! The horror!
Who do you think is the one being paroled?
Wow, that is insane. But this is where the Supreme Court and Trump would have us go in this country. It is a terrifying thought.
Nevermind the fact that the loudest advocates for this are the ones who have been violating it the hardest and the longest.
We talk the talk - WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS - but rarely walk the walk. Kafka, and others, have written about this. When Law becomes absurd and violates the spirit of Justice that it's supposed to in place to protect and promote Law itself becomes something that should be discarded.
I'm no anarchist, we need law, but we should always be looking to improve it. Think about this: those lawyers, judges, parole officer all twisted the law until they could make a person suffer because god?! An imaginary being with rituals of make believe?! It's sick. Besides that, all those people felt constrained by the law, or didn't probably give a shit or even were maleficent, and just shrugged and let another Con twist in the wind.
I suspect it's less that law that is at fault here than details of how the law is to be implemented. In this case, since no one had previously complained about a Christian place of residence, nor had anyone considered the possibility of an atheist objecting, that mechanism was their go-to solution. No one bothered to think outside of their Christian box.
Until Mark Janny kicked a hole in said box.
That we know of. For a Claudette Colvin or a Rosa Parks, how many stayed anonymous or were silenced ?
L'absence de preuves n'est pas la preuve de l'absence.
Précisément!
That's my point, there's no thinking. The law obviously is not meant to cause suffering...or is it (I give you the history of law as exhibit A).
Anyway, no thinking and just allowing process to unfold. It's like Civil Forfeiture. It was meant to collapse drug cartels and gangs in modern use, but now it's a funding machine for police. It was never improved, isn't watched over, just left to moulder until an enterprising sheriff decided he needed new wheels for the department...
Another recent example of absurdity: https://newrepublic.com/post/183135/ketanji-brown-jackson-absurd-supreme-court-bribery
Alito and Thomas can’t do without all those sweet, sweet bribes.
Selling their wares for $$$. That makes them hookers.
(No offense to actual sex industry workers, who are honest and have far better morals than these two robed slugs)
This should be a warning for what happens when we allow private organizations to fill in for government. I would venture a guess that this shelter was the only option (or one of very few). And many shelters do have this requirement. We have no problem spending billions to “lock the scum up” but aren’t so keen on investing in people who have served their punishment.
Many people who aren’t criminals face a similar dilemma: Christ or the cold, because all available shelter beds require participation in religious services. Speaking as a Christian, I’m offended by people who claim to share my faith but then use it to blackmail people into adherence.
Jesus never demanded allegiance for his service. Some people offered allegiance freely because of his service.
It is true that many of these cases probably come down to a resource problem.
But not this case. In this case, Janny brought an alternative accommodation option to the parole board and they rejected it. "You break it, you buy it" is the phrase that springs to mind. If the state is going to deny a secular housing option to a parolee, then by making that denial the state puts itself on the hook to provide one.
Not just private organizations but also religious organizations.
Here is another story made worse by "Qualified Immunity". People in government service, especially law enforcement should never get immunity when they violate someone's Constitutional rights. The fact that this was invented by the Supreme Court should have been a wake up call when they did it. It showed that SCOTUS had too much power then. Today we talk about how this rogue court is making law. Well, They showed us they can remove all Constitutional protection in 1982 by simply claiming the individual who did so was too stupid to read the Constitution. I said it before, I'll say it again; people in government should take a basic test on Constitutional law. I'm not advocating for a 1000 questions on specific case law, I'm asking for questions that every 5th grader should know the answers to.
Examples:
A police officer breaks into your home and shoots your dog. The officer had no warrant and did not announce himself. Does this violate any part of the Constitution, including any amendments?
You go to vote. The election working turns you away because you look too "queer". Does this violate any part of the Constitution, including any amendments?
A man on parole is given a choice; go to a Christian church service or go back to jail. Does this violate any part of the Constitution, including any amendments? Keeping in mind that it does not matter AT ALL whether he is Christian, atheist, Muslim or Jew.
This test (in my fantasy United States of America) would be given to anyone looking to run for any office in the country, from dog catcher to President. Let the Republicans come out against that and still claim to be the party of patriots and freedom.
Cops need a warrant or have to be able to articulate an exigent circumstance. See, I learned something from watching 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘙𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘓𝘢𝘸𝘺𝘦𝘳.
Let us not believe that this was true justice. Justice delayed is justice denied, and this resolution was delayed for 7 years, during 5 months of which Mr. Janny was unfairly incarcerated. A mere $100K doesn't begin to emphasize to a large state agency just how really, completely, totally WRONG it was about this.
Needs at least a couple more zeroes added to that number.
I am sorry that he was put in prison again for not going to religious services! He's an Atheist! They owe him more money than that. His parole officer has done this before putting his own personal beliefs above what's right and what's best for others. He needs to lose his job. Now!
Since the qualified immunity was dismissed, could that open the door for a civil lawsuit ? For Mr Janny, or anyone else.
If I were Mr Janney I would turn around and sue Mr Gamez and the State.That was more time in prison and he should not have been there. Both Gamez and the State knew Exactly why he was back in prison.
No, he needs to swap places.
Yah they do!
To Mr Janny new life, may he never return to jail.
Let's hope it never happens again. But with the direction parts of this country are taking I wouldn't count on it. christians inmates have to much privileges already.
As long as there are those in government and particularly in our judicial system who think that their beliefs are the default position and therefore that they can use the system to superimpose their beliefs on others, this crap will continue.
A whole lot of hands need to be slapped and monetary penalties levied before there might be any possibility of that concept being recognized.
"A whole lot of hands need to be slapped and monetary penalties levied...."
I would also add "and required, robust Civics classes taught in every public and private school from fourth grade through graduation..."
They don’t think their beliefs are the default position. They think their beliefs are the “moral” position.
I might have attended the Bible study but I still would have been kicked out. I’m an atheist, but I know the Bible pretty well and would have pointed out every inconsistency and hypocrisy I could.
Never mind the verses that NEVER show up in bible study!
The really “inconvenient” verses that they’re trying to quietly erase.
Lotsa luck with that!
Thank you for sharing yet more idiocy. It’s very sad to me that so much time and effort was spent by our legal system on this issue. I’m glad he finally ended up slightly financially ahead. Curious minds want to know—are any Islamic or Judaic halfway houses?
Likely not outside of areas with significant populations of those demographics.
Hey, Gamez...
Do you not understand what "atheist" means? You use computers. Look up the term "atheist/atheism" before you pull this shit again.
And jailing atheists for not bowing to your imaginary sky pixie is not going to make those atheists believers, so you are wasting both time and money.
"Atheists are not non believers, such a thing cannot exist, they simply hate god because they are jealous of those god favor.".
Their god calls himself The Lord Jealous in their Big Book o' Lies. What does an allegedly all-powerful, all-knowing deity have to be jealous of?
That one guy with a starship.
He was jealous of the other gods worshipped by the people who lived in Israel before he told Moses and his followers to kick the earlier residents out and set up shop there. The Bible "proves" that there are other gods.
Another plot hole in an omnibus full of them.
The bible could have used an editor. Of course if that happened, it would be the size of a flyer.
How about this leaflet, "Famous Jewish Sports Legends?"
IIRC, he specifically said something about a god named Malox.
El if I know.
By Jove!
No need to be so Mercury ! 😝
Wathn't trying to be a Thorhead. ;)
JHWH is jealous of the power and influence he/she/it/they have/has over the Jewish people. It wants to hold on to that power and continue receiving the fealty, obedience, sacrifices and bribes to which it thinks it is entitled. May I call on Homer Simpson to explain?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmx1jpqv3RA
I don't believe you.
Pretty sure that the person doing the hating in that conversation isn't the atheist. Or God.
Agnostic: An atheist who's afraid to come out of the God closet.
If I can chip in:
Deists: atheists with a god addiction.
And I'm really, really sorry, but every time I try to have a discussion with deists, that's basically what it boils down to sooner or later.
'Deist' is an anachronism. Back when the 'founding fathers' used it as a label, it was fashionable. The gold 'ol days when the earth was flat, germs were 200 years from becoming reality, and slavery was a thriving industry.
We had a Deist who posted regularly here at FA. Her nym was JustAnotherVoice and she was quite pleasant to talk to. Haven't heard from her since we were on Patheos.
Don't know who said it, but someone stated that "An agnostic is an atheist without balls."
Progress.
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑟’𝑠 𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠, 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ-𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔...
I wonder what they would have counted as "participation". For the bible studies, bring up the more interesting passages, look Lot and hos daughters, Elisha and the bears, Judah and Tamar, etc. Ask questions of the "counselor" that show the absurdity of their faith. Would he have been required to actively participate in the worship services or could he have simply sat in the room bored out of his skull?
Of course, that doesn't address the blatant constitutional violation, but it may have been fun.
They would have kicked him out for being disrespectful or disruptive.
I can tell you that you have to be at a minimum of them in person. Where I was they wouldn't make you pray but you had to be present.
It's a bit of a jerk move. After all, the other participants in the bible study weren't the ones who made the rule - the parole officer did. So why are you ruining their event for them?
If, as a nonbeliever, you decided to go the "I'll play along" route, then I'd go all-in on doing it right. Read the passage that's given. Make cogent arguments about it, and don't flinch in talking about why you reject the theology (even if, in some cases, you might accept some of the morality, like the golden rule). If you go to faith-based counseling, be honest and forthright about your non-belief but also your willingness to work on improving yourself. Make it clear that if there's going to be an authoritarian mean-spirited jackass in the room, it's not gonna be you.
This is my perennial separation of church and state complaint. Most courts that have diversion programs for drug charges are going to involve a 12 step program and a halfway house. Both of these things are going to be operating at best with a lot of Christian signaling. But they are the options. It's enter "treatment" or serve time. At worst you might end up in a for profit demi-chtistian halfway house with a proven track record of returning folks to jail. I'd say it's the MAJORITY of the country operating this way. How these programs getting money from government is a thing, I don't understand. I know they tell you your higher power can be anything you want it to be, but that's again, not appropriate for an atheist. They don't fucking get it.
They do get it. They just like the revolving door helping keep "those" people in poverty.
I know you're right. I do live in Kentucky. I just would like to think with the fentanyl crisis still killing people here every day, that they'd be more open to using better methods. They exist and they're in use in many parts of the state. But I think there's a real disconnect between the treatment and medication based programs available and what judges are offering folks. This is literally killing people and the fact that they are often people less likely to be religious (although those people are dying too) is starting to piss me off.
Well, judges are not immune to the sincere belief mistake of thinking 'Getting Jesus" must be effective. Or at least thinking that a treatment program with a bit of Jesus is better than a treatment program without it.
But their "sincere belief mistake" does not trump someone else's constitutional right not to be subject to religious coercion.
How dare you deny their religious right to deny others basic human rights!
"How these programs getting money from government is a thing, I don't understand."
Simple, just like scientoologists they invaded Hollywood.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐬
𝘐𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩-𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 12-𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘈 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘻𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦.
*snip*
Today, for instance, judges routinely require people to attend meetings after a DUI arrest; fully 12 percent of AA members are there by court order.
*snip*
A public-relations specialist and early AA member named Marty Mann worked to disseminate the group’s main tenet: that alcoholics had an illness that rendered them powerless over booze. Their drinking was a disease, in other words, not a moral failing. Paradoxically, the prescription for this medical condition was a set of spiritual steps that required accepting a higher power, taking a “fearless moral inventory,” admitting “the exact nature of our wrongs,” and asking God to remove all character defects.
Mann helped ensure that these ideas made their way to Hollywood. In 1945’s The Lost Weekend, a struggling novelist tries to loosen his writer’s block with booze, to devastating effect. In Days of Wine and Roses, released in 1962, Jack Lemmon slides into alcoholism along with his wife, played by Lee Remick. He finds help through AA, but she rejects the group and loses her family.
*snip*
In 1970, Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa, a member of AA, persuaded Congress to pass the Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Act. It called for the establishment of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and dedicated funding for the study and treatment of alcoholism. The NIAAA, in turn, funded Marty Mann’s nonprofit advocacy group, the National Council on Alcoholism, to educate the public. The nonprofit became a mouthpiece for AA’s beliefs, especially the importance of abstinence, and has at times worked to quash research that challenges those beliefs.
In 1976, for instance, the Rand Corporation released a study of more than 2,000 men who had been patients at 44 different NIAAA-funded treatment centers. The report noted that 18 months after treatment, 22 percent of the men were drinking moderately. The authors concluded that it was possible for some alcohol-dependent men to return to controlled drinking. Researchers at the National Council on Alcoholism charged that the news would lead alcoholics to falsely believe they could drink safely. The NIAAA, which had funded the research, repudiated it. Rand repeated the study, this time looking over a four-year period. The results were similar.
After the Hughes Act was passed, insurers began to recognize alcoholism as a disease and pay for treatment. For-profit rehab facilities sprouted across the country, the beginnings of what would become a multibillion-dollar industry. (Hughes became a treatment entrepreneur himself, after retiring from the Senate.)
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/