What makes you think he’ll listen this time?
With no rain in sight, Gov. Sonny Perdue is looking for a little spiritual help to get North Georgia out of its drought.
Perdue’s office has begun sending out invitations to a prayer service for rain at the Capitol next week.
The service is scheduled for Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. on the Washington Street side of the statehouse.
Heather Teilhet, his spokeswoman, said the governor began talking about wanting to host a service to pray for rain on his way back from Washington D.C. last week. He was in D.C. meeting with federal officials and the governors of Alabama and Florida to discuss the region’s water crisis.
Perdue, whose son is a Baptist preacher, has had similar prayer services in the past.
“Georgia needs rain. The issue at the heart of our drought problems is a lack of rain,” Teilhet said. “And there is nothing the government can do to make that happen.
“The governor recognizes that the request has got to be made to a higher power.”
I’m so proud to live in Georgia. I’m reminded of this story, one where God actually answered a prayer. Sometmies life truly does imitate The Onion.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
If it doesn’t rain in Georgia it will be the fault of the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America.
linda
there must be some rain diety — kinda like who the homeowners are turning to to sell their overpriced, rapidly evaporating equity homes:
http://cgi.ebay.com/St.-Joseph-Statue-Real-Estate-Kit_W0QQitemZ160177192509QQcmdZViewItem
Punchy
If this isn’t an Onion parody, I’ll shat myself. Are they going to sacrifice a virgin, too?
Michael D.
Punchy: Break out the toilet paper. It’s not a parody.
linda
oops — deity.
just scrolling thru wiki’s list of deities — the australian aborigines and aztecs look promising. lots of gods of rain, wind and fire to choose from…
douglasfactors
I hold Christo responsible.
http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ap_drought_071019_ms.jpg
RSA
Nah. It’ll be the fault of someone who’s praying for the drought to continue. It’s like SEC college football games. With so many people praying for each team to win, it makes it tough for God to choose. I think He just goes with whoever prays the hardest, and you know there have got to be some pretty crazy people out there praying hard for some pretty crazy things.
mg_65
Awesome. A rain dance.
Xenos
How about a nice, pagan, rain dance?
Time to get some Wiccans and Hopi Indians down to Georgia. Maybe some Norwegian tourists could lead prayers to Wotan. Tom Wolf could drop by for some good, old fashioned Zeus worship.
Sinister eyebrow
I prayed for snow days pretty much year round in grammar school and actually got a couple like every year! Viola! Prayer is the ultimate weather machine!
Mock not the Governor and his snow-day pleadings.
Buck
God always answers prayer and He doesn’t flip flop.
When He says no He By God means no!
Glad to know you live in Georgia too. A gay Republican atheist.
Let me guess. Cobb County?
jenniebee
Oooh – now pick fun at Patton for praying for good weather when he was rushing to bring reinforcements to the Battle of the Bulge!
Purdue is right in that there’s nothing that government can do to make it rain, so it’s not like he’s neglecting potentially effective rain-making programs in favor of a faith-based approach. Praying makes him feel better – there are hosts of things that individual humans are powerless to control, it makes some people feel better to think that there’s some benign force that can control it… where’s the harm in that?
Zifnab
Let me guess. He’s one of the handful of nutters who support the Bush Veto of the water bill. I can only begin to imagine how a person like this would have survived one or two hundred years ago.
“Mr. Governor! The crops are dying and the drought is going on forever. We need to dig wells, tap aquifers, open up irrigation ditches, and start rationing food.”
“Oh you naive little heretic. We’re not going to do any of that. Instead, we’re going to spend your tax dollars on a giant shrine to Jesus made out of fine imported Italian Marble and put it up in the center of the capital. Then we’re going to declare it a double-Sunday and get everyone into mass for a full 48-hours every weekend, praying till their feet swell and they start pass’n out. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just gut you from crotch to throat and sprinkle YOU over the crops, as the Lord intended.
Amen.”
Punchy
Elementary students everywhere, emboldened by Perdue’s “fuck it, let’s just pray this bitch out”, have decided to go to church each nite instead of doing their homework and reading their Cliff’s Notes. When asked why, Little Jody said, “God’s gunna divide my fractions for me, silly!”
RSA
I’ve known religious people who are unconcerned with things we can actually do something about, such as global climate change, because they’re sure that God would not let the human race come to such harm. Praying for rain may be harmless, or it may be a crutch.
Focus On Your Own Damn Family!
There is no harm in that.
The harm comes, as usual, when he uses the power of his office to recruit for prayer meetings.
Tony Alva
Michael D.,
I had a laugh/cry about this on the way in this morning myself. Glad to have a fellow Atlantan on the staff here at Balloon Juice.
I just moved my family out of Gwinnett County after 12 years on account of run away immigration issues ruining the schools. I’ll be interested to hear your perspective of the issue. Welcome aboard.
capelza
If prayer is so powerful, why did they wait so long?
WIll God listen more if the prauer is in the capitol?
Andrew
Surely there is some way we can blame the Democrats for this.
Punchy
Perdue’s clearly got a book to sell.
Pat Roberston
Obviously these Georgian’s have brought this on themselves and deserve every bit of it. Now I want all y’all to get out there and vote for my good friend Willard M.
grandpa john
Hmmm, I live just a few miles across the river from Ga and we need the same rain that he does, so I am wondering if he is going to extend the prayer wishes to include us here in South Carolina?
Andrew
Nuke-u-lar power don’t seem so awesome once you run out of water. I wonder what the nuke-o-philes will proclaim now.
jrg
When I read stuff like this, I wonder if we deserve to survive as a species at all.
So, emitting twice as much carbon the biosphere can absorb is not the cause of global warming, but singing Kumbaya will bring rain?
Yeah. The doctor keeps telling me the dysentery comes from drinking out of the toilet.
I guess the liberals never told him about evil spirits when he was being indoctrinated in medical school.
Punchy
I hear they’re charged up, albeit a little negative on the subject. They seem to be attracted to those that are at least slightly positive…
Dreggas
Yeah Pat it’s because they held Dom Con there back in October BWAHAHAAHAHAHA.
And to think people have actually suggested I move to Atlanta and that somehow Georgia is NOT like it’s made out to be.
Joshua
What percentage of people in Georgia voted for climate change denialist George W. Bush?
Ideas have consequences.
jenniebee
Oh, come on. Look, jump on him all you want for actual policy, go nuts about any rationing measures or any practical actions he could be taking but isn’t, but criticizing him for having a prayer service because you assume that if he’s asking jeebus for rain that he must be neglecting the practical actions is really, well it’s just mean. And nasty.
And there’s a difference between “using the power of his office to recruit for prayer meetings” and holding one. If this guy requires his staff to attend morning vigils that’s one thing, but a one-off rain prayer is something else entirely. It’s too bad that he isn’t making the prayer service part of some larger Water Conservation Awareness project, but it isn’t harmful, and this “let’s make fun of spirituality” schtik isn’t terribly attractive.
Andrew
Yes it is.
Garrigus Carraig
It’s not about his neglect of other options; that’s clearly not the case. In a country where church and state are supposed to be separate, it’s just unseemly. And it sounds like the sort of thing a governor in, say, Malawi would do. Outside the South, a call to prayer for rain from a governor is a completely alien notion.
If the senior minister of the SBC in Georgia or the Episcopal Archbishop of Atlanta had made the call, it probably wouldn’t have made the blog. But the governor? Gosh.
jrg
Oh, nonsense. First of all, praying for rain is not “spirituality”, it is superstition. I don’t pay my taxes so that the FDA can pray that the meat I buy is not rotten.
This rain dance has nothing to do with “God” or “spirituality”, it has everything to do with a Politian trying to appear as if he’s doing something about a problem that has been ignored by his party.
It’s not mean-spirited to insist that people in government do their jobs. Keep this crap out of government and in church, where it belongs.
Ashton
As a GA resident I am a bit embarrassed by this recent prouncement by Gov. Sonny, but I also cynically suspect that his office has been watching the Weather Channel as the 10 day forcast for Atlanta is calling for a 30% chance of rain on Tuesday and 40% on Wednesday.
tBone
If he wants to do this on his own time, fine. Organizing it as the Governor? No.
It’s not making fun of spirituality, it’s making fun of pandering asshat politicians.
Tax Analyst
Governmental clownishness is a legitimate target for ridicule. When the Governor of a State makes an official entreaty to the Gods it replaces thoughtful, rational leadership with shamanism. If this Special Request for Divine Intervention fails, what next, a Morning Moment of Prayer for all government employees and Public School students? If crime is up do we pray for God to change the criminal heart and mind or do we discuss options for dealing with it? If you have hunger is it proper government action to pray for Manna from Heaven or should they determine who is hungry and why and try to provide a workable solution?
Sonny Perdue is absolutely, 100% free to pray to God, Zeus, Venus, Charles Manson or whoever for rain, but he has no right to make it an Official State function. Not a freaking penny of public funds should be allocated or spent for this.
We don’t ridicule this type of foolishness to look “attractive”, we do it because it needs to be done…
…and, OK, we like to laugh at clowns…that’s what they’re for, isn’t it?
Punchy
Uh…Jennie?
In invitation is something you invite others to come to your “house” to partake in. He’s not “encouraging prayer vigils”, he’s jonesin to hold his own…on state grounds.
When the best your gov’nor wants to do…instead of reallocating more ducats to water desalination, water conservation, or climate change…is channel some guy in Birks and bad scares on his hands, there’s a huge problem.
Of course, Darwin would have predicted this.
markg
they may need rain but at least their stupidity reservoirs are overflowing.
r€nato
well it’s been said already but I can’t resist.
God is clearly punishing Georgians for its wicked, sinful ways and for turning their backs on Him.
Or, maybe God got confused and he meant to punish the former Soviet republic of Georgia instead.
Michael D.
Ashton.
That comment made me laugh! Of course, it was the same thing the LAST TIME he had a prayer service too!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Water? You mean like outta the toilet?
The reason why the crops aren’t growing isn’t because of the lack of rain…it’s because Gov. Perdue won’t give the plants what plants crave – Brawndo! It’s got electrolytes!
4jkb4ia
Possibly Purdue thinks that if the publicity gets to other states, people will have Georgia in mind when they say “mashiv haruach v’morid hageshem”.
4jkb4ia
This verbiage has been put in during the rainy season in Israel for as long as the prayers have been fixed.
r€nato
that film could have been so much better than it was. Word has it Fox is responsible for the godawful mess that it was.
Jeff in Texas
This really does look like a bunch of islanders somewhere dancing in the moonlight so the big green cargo planes will come back.
This is a totally inappropriate use of state symbols, authority, resources, etc. Go lead a prayer at your church, home, whatever. But mass prayer as state function is just ridiculous.
And not to be cute, but doesn’t God know it’s not raining in Georgia, South Carolina, etc.? Does the governor think it’s like a landlord who accidentally turned off the water— just bang on the pipe and he will turn it back on? I grew up in South Carolina, so I know plenty of people like this, but I will never understand them.
Dreggas
firstly, I was just thinking about that movie in regard to this along with the Steve Martin one where he playsa tent revival preacher and asks for rain or som shit.
As for the movie getting skewered by Fox. Of course it did, Fox and the republicans fox supports were the targets.
Michael D.
Too funny!!
Bubblegum Tate
True, but there was still some really funny shit in there–chief among them the “Brawndo’s got what plants crave–it’s got electrolytes!” discussion.
Anyway…they’re praying to God for rain? Like, the Abrahamic god? Dude, Ba’al is going to be pissed.
jenniebee
So what if it’s at the statehouse? So what if it’s Jeebus as shaman? Historically in this country we have kept that barrier between church and state a malleable one, not a rigid one, and we’ve done that because it works to keep it fluid and malleable. So we have chaplains opening state legislature sessions and we use bibles for swearing in ceremonies, and we try not to get too excited about it.
Because seriously, the more that rational, living in the secular, reasonable world people sweat the small stuff, and inviting people to pray for rain is freakin’ small stuff, the more it gets the backs of believers up. Then they dig in, then we dig in, and the cycle goes on and on until both sides take absolutely irreconcilable stands. Mocking spiritual people just plays directly into the far-right narrative that they’re surrounded by hostile, smug intelekshewal types who think all religious people are st00pid.
jrg
Sure, jenniebee, because the “Christian” politicians and fundies treated everyone else with so much respect before Darwin declared war on them 150 years ago.
Besides, look at how the Gays declared war on Christianity by being all gay and stuff.
Here’s an idea – maybe if Christians don’t want to look like jackasses, they stop showing their collective support for nimrods and blatantly narcissistic thugs.
Separation of church and state is not just there to protect the state, you know.
jenniebee
k, so clearly not everyone is ready for detente…
Chackahutz
> and this “let’s make fun of spirituality” schtik isn’t
> terribly attractive.
It is funny, because this idiotic, childish and naive idea reveals just how primitive the mind of Gov. Sonny Perdue is. Pray for rain? It is literally like a barbaric rain-dance 5000 years ago. The exact same thing. Do these religious crazies have no common sense at all? Not even shame?
It is both comic and frightening how primitive the thoughts of some of those in the highest positions of power are.
Chackahutz
> Mocking spiritual people just plays directly into the
> far-right narrative that they’re surrounded by hostile,
> smug intelekshewal types who think all religious people
> are st00pid.
Maybe, but it achieves something important: The problem in the United States is that religious ideas are taken seriously. This allows faith based “arguments” to enter mainstream discourse. They deserve only to be mocked and ridiculed. Have “faith” (the very word expressing its irraitonality) as much as you want, but please don’t try to base solutions to real-life problems on it.
tBone
All I know is that when I win a governorship, declare a state holiday, and hold a ceremony on the capitol lawn where I dance around naked smeared in goat’s blood while entreating the FSM to make the heavens open, I’m going to be pissed at any anti-religious elitists who complain.
chopper
pass the dutchie, old man.
Molly
Quoting Lewis Grizzard regarding critics of Georgia quoting an old ad campaign:
Delta is ready when you are.
scott
As I recall, Louisiane Governor Blanco and her folks tried to “pray down” Hurricane Katrina to Category 1 or 2 strom before it hit.
How’d that work out?
I’m praying for an all-out water war between the SE states with much bloodshed. I know it sounds harsh, but for folks stuck in ATL traffic all the time, de-population sounds pretty appealing.
Jarmo
The deeply worrying thing to me about this is not that the governor is a self-serving ass, which he is, but that a CNN poll shows that 42% of 100,000 online voters think that praying for rain will actually work. All I can say is Jesus Christ!
Thom
Rain will be on it’s way. 2-3 days from this post.