Is God Pissed Off?

Posted by Tom Wark on Jul 7, 2008

Coloradoans may now purchase wine from retailers on Sunday. I wonder if God is pissed off about this?

I think it unlikely that we’ll ever know the answer to that question, but I can be pretty sure that the recently repealed law that banned liquor sales on Sundays in Colorado was a result of Prohibition-era concern that government respect the Sabbath.

There does appear to be a trend across the country to peel back many of the "blue laws" the for the most part act to restrict access to alcohol either on a geographic basis (dry counties) or generally (no sales on Sunday). While the trend is not sweeping and some attempts to repeal these laws have certainly failed, it’s hard to ignore the fact that there is movement towards repealing or altering these anti-access alcohol laws.

So this is my question: Are we, as a country, simply less committed to faith-inspired laws that put God’s needs ahead of consumer’s needs? I think the answer to this is clearly, "yes". Society is most certainly embracing secularism. This may not seem so clear to those that live in the country’s Bible Belt, but I think we can say with some confidence that outside these area’s we are evaluating public policy, including alcohol policy, based on consumer, business and social needs, rather than the needs of God.

What’s interesting is how one tends to oppose changes in these laws:

"But there are plenty of independent retailers who prefer things the
way they are. They say that opening their shops an extra day of the
week increases overhead – namely, energy and labor costs – without
increasing sales.

"If you drink a bottle of wine with dinner
every night, and I’m suddenly open for a seventh day, are you going to
start drinking two bottles of wine with dinner?" asks Alan Wilensky,
owner of Max’s Package Store in East Lyme, Conn., and president of the
Connecticut Package Stores Association. "You’ll just buy less on
Mondays and Tuesdays, but I’ll have to open and pay overtime and
additional electricity costs on Sundays.

Such owners are also fiercely protective of their one day off, when
they know they can spend time with their families without worrying
about losing business to the competition."

This kind of opposition to Sunday sales is not faith-based, but convenience based. Many retailers simply don’t like the idea of having to work on Sundays. I understand this perspective perfectly! Who wants to work on the weekend if it can be avoided. I sure don’t. But can the general desire to have a day or two of relaxation be the motivation for our public alcohol policy? I can’t imagine why it should be.

What this all boils down to is that there is no rational reason to have a law that prohibits sales on Sunday. That means if you oppose Sunday sales, you really need to push the most emotional argument possible to prevent changes in the law. I can’t think of a better emotional argument than, "God Doesn’t Like It". There are of course many problems with this argument, not the least of which is many more folks today really don’t care what God likes and dislikes. It would be helpful to those in the God Lobby to get their Lord to weigh in on the subject if they expect to carry the day.