Monday, February 23, 2009
Hargrove Teetotaling Baptist Speaks Out Against Grocery Store Wine
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 11:28 AM
Lonnie Wilkey, editor of The Baptist & Reflector, a Tennessee Baptist Convention mouthpiece, wrote this opinion piece, cloaking weird Puritanism behind the veil of law and order. His argument: Sell wine at your local Kroger and our streets and sidewalks will fill with drunken drivers and soused, red-lipped teenagers.
Now all you really need is common sense to realize how inane this argument is. I'm skeptical about whether Wilkey believes this himself. I've been that teenage kid out for booze in states on both sides of the aisle, and I'll tell you, grocery store or liquor store, it doesn't really make a difference.
Like most of the rest of the world, I don't view wine through the judgmental lens of the Moral Majority. I look at it as just another food group. It sure would be nice, when I'm loading my cart up with bread and fresh meat, if I could pick up a bottle or two of vino along the way.
Comments (3)
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I'll raise you one or two (pardon the pun).
Yes, wine in supermarkets.
Yes, *beer* in liquor stores
Yes, OPEN on Sundays.
In fact, I'll take the last two as a compromise.
I'm curious to know whether we will have produce id when buying wine at Publix.
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Of course you would have to produce ID when buying wine at Publix. Just as you have to produce ID when buying beer or cigarettes. Why would wine have an exemption?
This law has never made sense to me since I moved to Tennessee. What is different about wine that it creates a risk for underage drinkers? Kids don't want to drink the beer or malt liquor that they can find in any grocery store or gas station mini mart? Roving bands of alcoholic teenagers are just out looking for a decent cabernet and as long as we keep it in liquor stores they won't discover the joys of drinking and remain decent human beings?
