The committee that assigns Brecht Awards — given for particularly lame political gambits — had to take a couple of days to debate this one, but now it’s official: Freddy‘s attack on “pay-to-pray” is a winner.
To refresh: Freddy spoke at the Greater Highway Deliverance Temple (Doesn’t “greater highway deliverance” sound like a new service from Fresh Direct?) Sunday to demand that churchgoers not have to feed parking meters.
Let me tell you about another bad choice the Mayor’s making: he believes it’s okay to make people pay metered parking on Sundays when they go to worship. That’s what he believes. The Mayor even went so far as to compare going to church to going—and I quote— ‘to be entertained, or shop or… to school or anything else.’
“Now I believe differently. I believe he’s wrong and we have to change it. I believe that there shouldn’t be a tax on worshipping.
“So today, let us call on Mayor Bloomberg to repeal parking meter restrictions on Sundays in the areas around our places of worship. People shouldn’t have to pay to pray. People shouldn’t have to feed the meter to worship. City Hall needs to understand that this place of worship that we’re in today, and the time we spend here, are sacred.
First off, this begs the question: Why only Christians? The obvious, maybe legally-required, next step is to suspend metered parking on Saturdays for Jews and Fridays for Muslims. Indeed, devout Muslims pray several times a day. Free parking outside mosques at all times, perhaps?
And who will make up the revenues? We poor, put-upon atheists. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about already.
