Florida godbotherer busted for flouting quarantine:
An arrest warrant for a Tampa Bay pastor was issued Monday, and the pastor was taken into custody after the sheriff said the church violated a countywide “safer-at-home” order.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said the River at Tampa Bay Church violated the county’s order related to large gatherings and social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic. A live stream from the church on Sunday showed the building packed with worshippers.
Worshippers who would go on to infect thousands of others.
Chronister saw photos of the crowd and he was pissed.
“We received an anonymous tip that Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne refused a request to temporarily stop holding large gatherings at his church,” he said. “And instead, he was encouraging his large congregation to meet at his church.”
…
Chronister said Howard-Browne refused requests to stop gatherings at the church and even encouraged people to meet at the church. Chronister said the pastor “put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk,” and in turn thousands of Tampa Bay residents in danger.
He was booked into the county jail. Mugshot:
I did a column for The Freethinker on similar reckless endangerment at “Liberty” “University.”
Comments
9 responses to “The building packed with worshippers”
This could get interesting — Yesterday, Virginia’s governor Ralph Northam issued Executive Order 55 on restrictions due to COVID-19.
EO 55 ¶ 1: People can travel *to* a church.
EO 55 ¶ 2: But more than 10 people *in* a church is a Class 1 misdemeanor, which can be punished by “confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.”
Ok so all people have to do is decide that god will be content with just going to a church and then turning around and going home again. “To” can mean “as close to as is consistent with social distancing.” Problem solved.
Isn’t there something about any “three gathered in his name” or similar?
Not really a “request” if you can be arrested for not doing it…
Not that I’m complaining. What a moron.
Yeah, Skeletor, the first quoted paragraph that used order made a lot more sense.
Bloodknight: Not only that, but the follow-up question should be, “Doesn’t God get the internet?” Lots of congregations–including those of the more conservative stripe–make use of online services. So the only reason for the idiots who don’t (I was in the doctor’s office waiting room a week or two ago, and saw a news story about a Louisiana congregation doing the same bullshit, with the kicker that the pastor said he’d heal anyone who was infected, anyway) is to be defiantly anti-science.
The proper response isn’t to arrest the pastor, by the way–it’s to send in a team during the service, set up barbed wire fencing around it, and declare the church to be a quarantine zone. No one gets out until they’ve all been tested, and tested again 3 days later, since that seems to be the possible lag-time. Until then, they are free to practice their religion without involving anyone else in their suicide pact with God.
Jesus, a single case amongst those congregants would rip through them like napalm, just slower. The sad thing is, if this order and arrest came in time to prevent that, they’ll never know how lucky they are and will probably just nurse a grievance against ‘libruls’ and their ‘martial law’.
Howard-Browne wasn’t even counting on divine protection for his parishioners. He said his church had “machines” that would “shoot down” the virus if anyone sneezed. (Just beware, before clicking through on the link that the shirt he’s wearing in this video looks like a Haight-Ashbury leftover find that will make your eyes bleed.)
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1243596668995584003
If you’re going to lie, you should probably think your lies through so they don’t make you sound like you’re more twisted and corrupt than you already seem to be. You’d think a good, kind Christian like himself, in this time of trouble, would be willing to share this remarkable technology with others. Hospitals? Schools? He’d be helping to get America back to work with machines like these! Hell, I’d bet the Pentagon would like to have a look at such “machines.” Maybe they’re based on the same technology as the “bomb detectors” that were making the rounds of military procurement establishments a few years ago.
Well, shooting down viruses is consistent with people positing Trump as a war president (a cautionary note: war presidents rarely get defeated).
I do think that could make a good animated cartoon, if I only had the skills.