What a monumental hypocritical bigot GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue is. He thought it was a great idea for the people to decide at the ballot box whether or not gays and lesbians have the right to marry (and an amendment passed easily in 2004), but when legislation that would allow a direct vote on whether beer and wine should be sold on Sundays — Perdue said that he’d pull out the veto pen.
Yes, that’s right — the people don’t have the right to determine whether you can buy a brewski on Sunday, but they damn sure must be able to weigh in on the civil rights of homos. Jesus Christ. Even the Georgia Log Cabinettes went apesh*t. (SoVo):
“In 2004, our legislature and Gov. Perdue allowed Georgia voters to overwhelming approve a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage,” Jamie Ensley, president of Ga. LCR, said in a statement.“Gov. Perdue said on gay marriage, `I think we need be very respectful of the people’s voice and listen to that.’ What Gov. Perdue is telling us is that repealing Georgia’s Blue Laws is the will of the people, but it conflicts with his personal views, so he’s going to veto it, and as an added bonus, he’ll make his right wing conservative voting base happy,” Ensley said.
…Appearing Jan. 17 on the Bert Show on Q-100 FM, Perdue, who is a teetotaler, said despite public opinion, he would veto legislation on Sunday alcohol sales.
…”"When you ask people generally if they want the right to vote on anything - what kind of toilet tissue the state ought to use, or anything like that - they’ll typically say yes,” Perdue said on the Bert Show. “Some things rise to the level of referendums - such as, I felt, the symbol, the flag that represented Georgia, which I felt rose to that level,” Perdue added.
“But you can’t do government really by referendum. And so, I don’t support that, and I don’t know whether it will pass the Legislature or not, but it’ll have a pretty tough time getting the last vote.”
29 Responses to “Georgia gov: the people can vote on marriage equality, but not blue laws”
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Translation: I’ll let them vote as long as I’m sure they’ll vote the way I want.
Hypocrisy, thy name is politics.
My head suddenly hurts every time that assclown governor of mine opens his mouth.
Coincidence? I think not.
No word yet on the right of the people to get drunk on Sunday and then marry someone of the same gender…
I got Category 4 winds on this one… As a Georgia resident, I’m outraged and embarrassed by both the constitutional amendment and our Prohibition-era blue laws.
On several occasions in the grocery store I have had to tell people — newcomers or out-of-towners, most likely — that they would have to put back the beer or wine in their cart simply because it was Sunday. (I’ve never been a cashier or anything; I was just trying to be neighborly.) Super Bowl Sundays are bad, and it’s heartbreaking when Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday. Last year Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fell on Sundays. To their credit, the grocery stores did their best to warn consumers to buy ahead, but I’m sure some people (like, out-of-towners) still got shafted out of their holiday spirits.
This policy pisses me off to no end. It makes Georgia look so backward, so unfriendly (not to mention theocratic). It took us five years just to get craft Belgians on the shelves because we had to change a law that set the maximum alcohol content of beer at 6%. I remember Kathy Cox, the “Changes Over Time” School Superintendent who was then a representative, really pissing her pants about that one year. Beer lovers finally won, but a lot of reps declined to even vote on the passage of the new law (probably to avoid fundie hate mail).
Remind me again why I live in Georgia? Oh yeah… Atlanta.
One clarification on the Georgia blue laws: Restaurants can serve alcohol on Sundays, though I’m not sure they can start before 11:00AM. Liquor stores are closed, though, and people can’t buy beer or wine from the grocery stores.
I’ll always remember the debate over allowing beers with higher alcohol contents to be sold because Fred Powers (Atlanta’s answer to Geraldo Rivera) did an “investigative” report about it.
He did a controlled experiment where he drank regular beer and some intern from the TV station drank 12% beers and they used a breathalyzer to see who got drunk faster. It had completely predictable results, but that didn’t stop the station from hyping the “special report” all through the prime time that night.
I wondered at the time if he was going to follow that up with an in-depth look at whether you could get to LA faster using a bicycle or a 747.
The Governor’s problem is, he doesn’t have a handl;e on the idea that some things are TOO important to be put up to a popular vote every couple of years.
I guess now I don’t have to ask my friends why they’re moving BACK to California after she got transferred to the ATL a couple of years ago…
You can’t do government by referendum. Just highly divisive social issues in which the minority to be crushed is those hated gay people. But when the minority to be crushed is absolutist Christian killjoys? Oh- the state protects them.
It’s not just Georgia. In Massachucetts, it was a horrible violation of the people’s rights for the legislature to procedurally invalidate the anti-marriage referendum, no, no, have to vote on it, have to give the people the right to vote — and yet, in the very same session, they procedurally invalidated other, less controversial referenda.
Continuing proof that there is no stick too small to use to beat gay people.
At least you can SELL liquor in grocery stores in GA: in ND, it’s illegal. ND: even dumber blue laws.
What if we propose a bill to let gays buy beer on Sunday? They’re already sinners so why not let them go at it? of course, then everyone in Georgia would declare themselves gay in order to buy beer before the super bowl.
The Local Crank Jan 23rd, 2007 at 3:50 pm
No word yet on the right of the people to get drunk on Sunday and then marry someone of the same gender…
Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!!!!!!!!
Keith:
OMG. Keith wins the interweb.
But you can’t do government really by referendum.
Yeah - people might get the crazy idea that they live in a democracy.
I hate any of those laws that prevent the sale of certain things at certain times. As I see it, I should be able to walk down to the supermarket at 3am on Sunday, December 25 and buy anything I want.
Wallsy.
Hurrycane wrote:
“Remind me again why I live in Georgia? Oh yeah… Atlanta.”
I hear ya. A pearl in a sea of grits, as a friend of mine used to say.
Incidentally, I’ve heard that a not insignificant amount of pressure against this measure has actually come from liquor store owners (In Georgia, unlike other places I’ve lived, the liquor stores are private businesses, not run by the state). They’re arguing that the measure puts them at a competitive disadvantage because, since they also sell ‘hard’ liquor, they would still be forced to stay closed on Sunday - which is a whole ‘nother ball of stupidity all together.
At least you can SELL liquor in grocery stores in GA: in ND, it’s illegal. ND: even dumber blue laws.
Actually you can’t sell liquor in grocery stores in GA. Some cities are even dry cities where liquor cannot be sold period, not even in restaurants.
yeah, that’s logical, drink in a restaurant and then drive home, but god forbid you buy it and consume it in the privacy of your home. that’d keep you out of church for sure. no, stocking up on saturday is surely the way to salvation.
Dan: Ditto on Kieth. Brilliant. I can see it now: Gays become instantly popular. Like adults who buy beer for errant teenagers.
*sigh*
Right. Only beer and wine. And only in “enlightened” counties. (I live near Atlanta, so I don’t usually have to deal with the “dry county” issue.) *eyeroll* Yeah, I heard something about that. If this measure fails, I bet it’ll be because of lobbying pressure from businesses, not fundies.I’m afraid that it might spin that way. The measure fails and the lobbying interests get what they want, the gov. and all the OTP legiscritters get to throw a bone to their bible-banging constituents, and the rest of us are still running into Kroger in our bedroom slippers at 11:55 Saturday night because we forgot to buy a six-pack.
MN has stupid liquor laws too. You can’t buy anything but 3.2 beer in a grocery store, liquor stores can’t be open on Sundays but you can buy the crappy grocery store beer or go out drinking and then drive yourself home…hmmm has anyone ever considered that this law perhaps increases state revenues through increased DUI/DWI tickets? It’s really the only reason I can think of to have a law that stupid.
On the way home from the grocery store Sunday, after buying all the necessary football junkfood, I stopped at one of the three liquor stores available to me and bought a six-pack of Amstel Light. MA has it’s own stupid blue laws, but at least we got rid of a ban on sunday liquor sales.
Sigh. They don’t live in a democracy. America is - thank the Disco Ball - not a democracy. Democracy is a horrible, terrible idea in which the majority passes laws and the minority gets screwed. Democracy is responsible for all these gay marriage bans. It’s bad enough we don’t have proportional representation, but I am so sick of hearing all these people go on about democracy like it was a good thing.
So you can do civil rights by referendum, but not government? Heh. Actually, with regard to Georgia in particular, it seems that civil wrongs are a more likely term.
Blue laws should be unconstitutional as an imposition of Christianity in any case. And the right of people to be treated equally should not be left to the whims of … the benighted.
Oh, poor Georgia. But don’t feel too bad! Like MAJeff said, we in Massachusetts (the bluest of the blue, well, maybe except for Vermont) only just got rid of the no-liquor-on-Sunday prohibition. I KNEW there was something we blue- and red-staters had in common!
Actually, realchesherkat, it is a democracy. A representative democracy.
There is no Soviet Union anymore, but everybody remember those great victories and defeats. We trusted in idea and we made our history through great losses…
www.backinussr.com
No problem with me…I feel sorry for the Gays and lesbians & thier families living in GA. As a Gay Man living in Progressive NJ, I will NEVER go to GA. It’s another state in America added to my list to NEVER go too…ever! My America has shrunk!