The Grand Poobah of the First Cannabis Church won't risk arrest at his inaugural church service this Wednesday by lighting up and smoking marijuana as he earlier assured his followers and media folks would occur. Bill Levin now says his church will file a civil lawsuit against the state after the Religious Freedom Restoration Act takes effect on Wednesday. The Indianapolis Star
quoted the attention-seeking Levin from a post he made on Facebook:
"Right now, we do not want to address this in criminal court, because it's not a strong hand," Levin said in an interview with The Indianapolis Star. "If we address this in civil court, we have a stronger hand."
"Due to the threat of police action against our religion I feel it is important to CELEBRATE LIFE'S GREAT ADVENTURE in our first service WITHOUT THE USE OF CANNABIS," Levin wrote on his Facebook page. "The Police dept has waged a display of shameless misconceptions and voluntary ignorance. We will do our first service without the use of any cannabis. CANNABIS WILL BE PROHIBITED ON THE FIRST SERVICE.
"We will not be dragged into criminal court for their advantage. We will meet them in a civil court where the laws are clear about religious persecution. We do not start fights. We Finish Them!
"One Love!"
Ignorance is bliss. Whether Levin's church could assert in a court of law a religious right to use marijuana as part of its religious ritual has absolutely nothing to do with the enactment of Indiana's RFRA law, which does little more than codify into state law a federal RFRA law that's been on the books for two decades and the associated case law interpreting that statute. RFRA re-affirms free exercise rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Mainstream news media reports and radical leftist organizations unfairly characterized the law as a license to discriminate against gays in an effort to demonize the long-accepted American tradition of religious freedom.
7 comments:
Levin backs down under threat of arrest. What a surprise. The State has far deeper pockets for legal work than does he, I would imagine. Maybe 't'would be better to put this sham church to rest permanently.
Metinks Levin's fifteen minutes of infamy are concluded.
Not surprising. Most Americans shoot pretty low when looking for someone to follow.
I do like his slogan, "We don't start fights. We finish them." Think the Marion County Republican Party might consider adopting this mantra and acting on it? Instead, it's "We start fights-and we lose them."
LOL. Bill Levin has never finished anything he started.
Nah 5:41, he usually finsihes his joints, sooner or later. His religious freedom act appears to be going up in "smoke".
This isn't about Levin. The OP is correct. This is about the media using this circus shideshow to drive another nail in the religious freedom coffin. The first amendment is now effectively dead and they're using this tool and others like him to finish it off. Oh well. I have little doubt now that there will be a successful secessionist movment. I also have little doubt that if it's driven by the faithful, the hedonists will simply let them go. Better still.
Congratulations. Your backwards, knee jerk reaction to this harmless pothead will result in expensive legal defenses to his rfra civil suit, and quite possibly damages. How many potholes in roads would that money have fixed. Why the shrill, hysterical worry over the church of cannabis? This day, in the real world, actual events relating to the new business of cannabis are taking place, to wit: Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul is courting donors from the marijuana business in a groundbreaking event in Denver.
The Kentucky senator is holding a fundraiser Tuesday at the Cannabis Business Summit.
Paul becomes the first major-party presidential candidate to publicly court donations from the pot industry. Though legal weed business owners have been active political donors for years, presidential candidates have shied away from holding fundraisers made up entirely of marijuana-related business owners.
Paul has joined Democrats in the Senate to sponsor a bill to end the federal prohibition of marijuana for medical reasons. The senator also backs a federal drug-sentencing overhaul.
Pay attention Indianapolis. In the real world the focus of marijuana interest is money. Making it. Taxing it. Not spending it ridiculously locking up petty offenders and not wasting police resources on foolish pot smoking. This business of Indianapolis conservatives held over from the 1950’s hysterically wailing about the church of cannabis and their desire to light a few joints after their church service is sad. Take off your leisure suits and adjust. Its a dangerous and rapidly evolving world. Marijuana use isn’t worth the cost of the crackdown. This business of Levin heading straight to court is going to cost us money. We should have stayed out of his church business. It was your rfra. Now you don’t respect it. I guess they were right. It was really only to keep your 1950’s world gay free.
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