someone has to protect them from those spooky gay people.
An Alabama megachurch plans to start its own police force thanks to a new law permitting the church to do just that.
The law, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, authorizes Briarwood Presbyterian to “appoint and employ one or more suitable persons to act as police officers to protect the property of the school or academy.”
A similar bill was proposed four years ago, but it was dropped by the Alabama legislature amid a public outcry over the Presbyterian Church in America’s racist history, as well as criticism that the bill was unconstitutional and violated the Establishment Clause’s separation of church and state. Briarwood Presbyterian is part of the PCA.
Briarwood Presbyterian’s congregation is overwhelmingly white. Nearby Birmingham is two-thirds black
If the church or its membership is paying for the police force, I have absolutely zero problem with this. REGARDLESS of the church or its membership’s motives in doing so.
Now if the outside community or the State is paying for this, that would be a different question entirely.
If I can ask a silly question, what’s the difference between this and a security guard besides the name? Does the “police force” have the right to use weapons as law enforcement?
On a barely related note, I was by a VA hospital yesterday and a cruiser marked “Police Veterans Affairs” drove by me. I thought it odd that they would have cruisers.
How is it any different than the campus police employed and run by many universities? And wouldn’t permitting secular schools to have them and denying them to religious schools be religious discrimination on the part of government?
Example, in utah Brigham Young University has a post certified police force on campus. They have to follow the same rules and regulations as any police force in the state. They tried to claim they were exempt from GRAMMA (ability for citizens to request reports and such), and were refusing to release information. Legislature this last session passed a law specifing that any police agency certified by POST is subject to that law. So now BYU has a choice. Come into compliance, or have their department de-certifed (basically become security guards).
