Baptists and the *DRY* County of Montgomery, Texas

The BBQ Pit
1

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the my partner, Charles and I headed to east Texas to check out the piney woods.

Having spent all of my Texas time in Austin, Dallas or in the western part of the state, I was truly surprised to see tall, towering PINE TREES in a state that I had come to view as a Hollywood backlot where they store the extra sets for B-grade Ronald Reagan westerns.

Anyway, we come to Conroe, Texas, Charles’s home town and the county seat for Montgomery, Texas. We spot the local gay bar and, after dropping our gear off at the motel, we head there for some fun.

So, we’re there and I buy the first round. I get up to the bar and eventually get waited upon. Whereupon I’m asked if I’m a member. “Member of what?” I ask. The bartender gets two sheets of paper and hands them to me. The bar manager comes over explains that everything south of Texas State Highway 105 is dry, by law, in Montgomery county. She said the Bapstist wrote the law and passed it. If we want to drink here, we’re going to have to join a private club.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!!! PROHIBITION WAS REPEALED SOME 60 YEARS AGO!!!

No set of grey-haired old ladies who have never tasted anything stronger than seltzer water have a right to decide where OR EVEN IF I can drink in any county.

They can take their rules and their Holy Book and the two-bit, uneducated ignoramous, pulpit-thumping ASS LICKING, COCK-SUCKING, MOTHER FUCKING preacher, wad them all together and shove it up their dryed out cunts and set the whole mess on fire. Hopefully that’ll shock their brains, of which only the lizard section is left and make them realize they have no right to enforce their morality on others!

So, the bar manager waived the sign-up fee, ($5. for each) and sold us the drinks, after giving us our membership cards. I’m still riled, tho… it’s the principle of the thing. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2

Did anyone else find this juxtaposition amusing?

Sua

3

I guess I’m inured to it, after living in the South and then in Utah (where there are NO public bars–it’s ALL private clubs).

For the most part, counties are allowed to do any ol’ thing they want to regarding whether or not alcohol is sold and when, provided there’s no conflict with federal or state regulations. There are dry counties all over the nation–all primarily rural, conservative, and yes, often religious.

4

I currently live in Lubbock, Texas, a city of around 200-250,000 people. Lubbock county is dry in the sense that package sales are not permitted; you can buy a beer or whatever at a bar, but nowhere can you buy a six-pack.

If you want to bring liquor home, you must drive out on the Tahoka highway to the Strip, a cluster of liquor stores that, at night, are lit up like Las Vegas. On the plus side, the prices and service tend to be pretty good, what with all the stores being so close together and thus so competitive. On the down side, I really think it’d be better to allow a person to walk to 7-11 to get some beer, rather than making him drive out of town and maybe toss back a few cold ones on the drive home. Apparently the Baptists do not agree.

[joke]
What’s the difference between Baptists and Methodists?

Methodists will wave to each other in a liquor store.
[/joke]

5

I spent much of my youth in a DRY county. It is stupid, no doubt. However each time it would come for a vote, it would never pass. There was a simple reason the vote would never pass, too many preachers and bootleggers. Of course the bootleggers shouldn’t have been voting against it, all they had to do was sell on Sunday and they would make a killing in any manner. Oh yes, the politics of rural life in the Deep South.

Progress only comes to those who want it. That is why I left.

Alantus

6

Maybe I’ve lived next door to a dry county too long, but I fail to see the problem. The only bars in the dry county (Rankin) are in what’s called a “resort” zone near the resevior, so there’s no fuss. You can buy beer at the store, Hard stuff before you go home to Rankin County, and the bars are where all the people are anyway.

I fail to see the fuss.

7

Familiarity does put different colored lenses in your specs. For years, the state of Ohio held a monopoly on hard liquor. You could buy beer and wine package goods, but for hard stuff had to go to “The State Store”. They were ugly, uncomfortable places, with the general ambience of a drivers license office, but somewhat less friendliness. Truly a Soviet approach to marketing: make it difficult and make 'em sweat.

I was suprised but happy to find that other places handled it differently.

My objection to these kinds of blue laws? They use the law to enforce the religious views of the majority (maybe) on everyone. I’m trying to think of an analogy, but nothing really compares; say, a predominantly Jewish county prohibiting the sale of pork products, or a Hindu county forbidding the sale of beef–to anyone, unless they take their sinful habits inside “private” doors.

:::shrugs::: They offend me, too, on principle.

Veb

8

Well, at least here in Texas we have less stupid drunken drivers, less people die,
Anyway if you as you said, have lived in Texas for a long time and did not know about these kinds of laws, man you must have been asleep for a long time or being too bussy taking it up your ass. Wake up boy!!!

bye the way do not drink and drive, I’ve seen the results.

9

Texas, Nigeria - they must be the same place – they both got oil!
Sua

10

As opposed to, say, taking it too deep in the ear?

11

Actually- and I can dig up a cite for this as requested, I just don’t have it offhand- dry laws have been found to be counterproductive. What will often happen is that people will go to a non-dry county or city, get raging drunk, and then have to drive home.

12

For the record, DRY does not support “dry laws” (and by the way, can’t we invent another term for that?).

“A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme: it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use…If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.”
–The Second Part of King Henry IV, Act 4, Scene iii

By the way, DRY also does not endorse dry spells, and what a couple wags have said (that he’s the “patron saint of dry spells”) is not true (a pox on both your houses!)

“I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.”
–The Merry Wives of Windsor (insert your own smartass remark here), Act 3, Scene V

13

Dallas is my home town, although I haven’t set foot in
Texas since 1963 except to change airplanes a few times. At the time I left, it was still illegal to buy mixed drinks anywhere in Dallas County except in private clubs–most of those clubs charged a $1.00 initiation fee plus $1.00 per year dues. But–in parts of Dallas there existed “beer joints” where one could sit in one’s car and drink cold beer that was brought to you by car-hops, as they were known. And there were any number of places where one could sit all day and night and drink beer in airconditioned comfort.

I attended Texas Tech in Lubbock for a couple of years. When I first arrived in Lubbock, the shortest drive for a beer or a drink was to a little town in New Mexico. At that time, any and all advertisements for alcohol were illegal in Lubbock—no radio or tv commercials, no billboards and no newspaper adds. And, I might add, no private clubs, either.

Couples–boy-girl couples that is, could not so much as HOLD HANDS while walking on the campus of Texas Tech. Doing so would result in loss of certain privileges for the girl and a severe lecture by the Dean of Men for the guy. Women’s dormitories were locked tight at 10:30 on weeknights and at 1:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays. Parking lots around the women’s dorms were patrolled by the campus cops day and night.

And, for what it is worth, an openly gay couple would have been stoned at the city gates—so, Freyer, count your blessings and be damn glad you didn’t live in Texas way back when.

14

Freyr,

According to Mapquest, you were 6.4 miles from the quaint town of Cut and Shoot, Texas, supposedly named after a feud that was almost fought over a sermon. Do you really want these folks to have easy access to alcohol???

15

Whee! I thought this post would disappear and wither away!

SuaSponte, look, I was angry when writing that, what do you expect, perfection? :smiley: Is there really much of a difference between an ASS LICKING, COCK-SUCKING, MOTHER FUCKING preacher and a COCK LICKING, ASS-SUCKING, MOTHER FUCKING preacher?

Saint Zero, this is my first exposure to such backwoods silliness in my adult life. I thought it was outrageous and downright stupid and died out with the fading of Blue Laws. Running into IRL was scarey.

I was just venting here, nothing more. I hardly ever drink, but when visiting the place, I felt it necessary to buy a few drinks. What bothers me most is going thru the whole rigamarole in order to buy ONE drink; especially for an out-of-towner like myself.

Smithwow, ah you so live in Texas and they have fewer drunk drivers because of the DRY laws on the books? You are a lying sack of shit! While a few counties in Texas are dry, the majority are “wet!” Look at Travis county, where I live. You can buy beer at the corner mini-mart and drive off with it and no one blinks an eye. I suggest you check the DoT statistics on drunk driving offenses in Texas and compare them with the national average.

LouisB, I know! sigh I can’t wait to leave this place.

Cornflakes, Acutally I live in Austin, not Conroe. For which I’m forever grateful.

16

I like the fact that PA has state stores and beer distributers. I have enough problems when people get pissy about being carded for smokes…I don’t want to have to deal with selling people booze.

17

I agree you shouldn’t have to join a private club to drink. Nor should a person have to join a private school to pray publicly. These kinds of gross intolerances must be stopped before we both consume ourselves with the kind of preaching you most despise.

18

Who has to join a private school to pray publicly? IF you have actually been denied the right to pray during free time at a public school, I suggest you contact your local chapter of the ACLU. If you haven’t been (as I suspect), then I suggest you take your head out of your ass and realize that nobody has ever (legally) tried to prevent such a practice.

19

Sir(?), I must diagree with you. It has been suggested by several in the ACLU that no open display of religion should be allowed. I’m sure I could dig up links on line which support my quote, but you can do it for yourself since I believe there has been enough written about the ACLU’s position on school prayer.

20

Actually, no, there have not. I direct your attention to the ACLU (and many other religious/non religious groups’) statement on relgion, found here: http://www.aclu.org/issues/religion/relig7.html

Some choice quotes:

Certainly doesn’t sound to me as though the ACLU beleives “that no open display of religion should be allowed.”