The good folks of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church were busy packing 100 backpacks for poor children so they would have school supplies in September, right before the fire destroyed their church last August. The next day, after they rescued 2 beloved Bibles, they went right back to packing those backpacks for poor children. They weren’t letting fire get in the way of their mission. Actually, their mission and generosity don’t surprise me one little bit.
I have been blessed to know at least one member of this congregation and I can say unequivocally that this lady is one of the finest Christian women I have ever known, in a quiet, unassuming way. She has no idea I think this of her and if she read this blog she wouldn’t know me behind my moniker or have any idea I was speaking of her. That’s just how she is.
But I digress….
November 29, Maurice Thomson Michaely of Haymarket was charged with setting the fire that destroyed the entire building. Why would anyone burn down a church? Why would a white man burn down a black church? It is too early to know if Michaely will be charged with a hate crime but one has to ask those questions. At any rate, the incident sickens me. The question continues to be why? What sick individual would do something like this? Shame on anyone who thinks of doing something like this.
Further reading: Haymarket man charged in church fire
What sort of savage animal would do something like this?
It is a savage act, but there is an inherent absurdity to the idea that only black people can burn down black churches without additional penalties.
I suppose a black person could be charged with a hate crime also if he or she burned down a black church and hate was involved.
I did keep it open. Maybe it isn’t.
Sorry, I remember when burning and bombing black churches was sort of the in thing to do.
I wonder who Mr. Michaely voted for in the recent elections?
The Imperial Wizard????? @BS
@BSinVA
I would gluess voting is an event unfamiliar to him.
Wow, now we’re now going to politicize sociopaths. Are you guys ever going to be happy that you won?@BSinVA
I’m not saying anything…you know what I’m saying ?
Yeah, I know what you’re saying, obviously.
I will be very interested to hear how this case unfolds, very interested indeed.
At least the day after THIS election I did not see anyone in Haymarket, walking down route 15, carrying a confederate flag!
You probably just werent in the right place at the right time. I bet someone was there. (I am sorry to say)
Let’s put this another way, what are some reasons this wouldn’t be a hate crime?
He could have been an errant alter boy who accidentally dropped a votive candle. It could have been spontaneous church combustion and he was just walking by. God could have been trying to hit him with a lightning bolt and accidentally missed and hit the church. He could have been focusing the sunlight with a magnifying glass to kill insects and accidentally caught a pew on fire. He could have been smoking a fatty behind the church and absent mindidly threw the roach in some leaves near the church. He could have been burning a new Jesus tattoo into his neck and dropped the electric tattoo pen onto an open hymnal. Just to name a few.
That’s why we keep leftists around—they still have all the answers.
He could have been a leftie and was building a fire to warm a shoeless homeless person.
He could have been a disappointed Republican and was burning Romney-Ryan campaign posters.
If he has a record of setting fires – all theories are off. How was he caught, most arsons are difficult to solve? Need one or two facts before he’s assigned to a political party.
Left handed people resent all that lefty talk :). Makes it sound like they were correct to make lefties switch hands.
I think that messes up a person’s brain.
If a person burglarized first it would get rid of the hate crime stigma also.
Arsonists are strange people. I know someone I am pretty sure is one. Not around here. The trigger is the interesting part.
Why would a white man burn down a black church? I know it is a rhetorical question. Why would so many states want to secede? That one is almost rhetorical–why? Because a black man is sitting in the WHITE House. In this case, white is not referring to what we call the White House but to the fact that there a re far too many people who believe it is a WHITE house–only white people are supposed to occupy it. I suspect if Marco Rubio was to be elected some day, there would be a similar group who would want to secede. Pardon my crudeness at this next statement but when Mitch McConnell said, “It will be our job to make sure that President Obama is a one term president”, what he meant was “We’re gonna get that nigger out of our WHITE House.”
I had a friend who actually said those words, George.
It is said more than we are comfortable admitting to, thats for sure. I took your comments out of moderation. If people are saying it, we can’t brush it under the rug. Thanks for your directness, in this case.
@George S. Harris I am absolutely in awe of your mind reading skills, George, but I don’t t think the skills of our legal system/government are that highly developed. I will never agree that the concept of “hate crime” is anything but synonymous with “thoughtcrime”. I don’t trust that the mind-reading skills of the criminal justice system will be as finally honed and calibrated to uniform standards as yours and BS’s happen to be.
I guess the next group of right-wingers to grab the spotlight will be the “hate crime ” deniers. Viola Liuzzo, the children at the Birmingham church, James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr., Matthew Shepard, and a host of lesser known people were just murdered because someone thought bad things about them. Right….
You’re conflating issues. No one is going to argue with you over the horror of those crimes. I just don’t see how one can fairly quantify “hate”. Otherwise, one can assume that all crimes committed against someone of another race should have harsher penalties.
@Censored bybvbl
Just is. Dragging a gay someone out and beating the crap out of him just because he is gay is a hate crime. Beating the crap out of someone because you are mad at him is just different. Bombing a church in Birmingham and killing little girls is a hate crime. The only reason for bombing the church was because it was a black church.
JUST IS. Maybe rule of law just is.
One of my elves hinted to me that this is not a hate crime here in Haymarket.
@Emma
One has to assume nothing of the sort. Some crimes could obviously be robbery, road rage, etc. I believe the FBI teases out more data than a criminal’s race or sexual orientation to assume a hate crime has been committed. People talk. They blab to friends or people they think share their distaste for segments of society. They blab on Facebook or on white power blogs.
A hate crime? How does one determine a hate crime? Are we going to read people’s minds to see if there was hate involved?? Or how about if someone murders someone else. Wouldn’t one expect there to be some hate in the perps heart?
Burning a church is illegal. It is already a crime. Charge him with that and be done with it. Our laws are getting overly complex.
Is arson. Is crime. Lock him up. Who cares WHY the crime was committed. Burned is burned. Killed is killed.
There is plenty of difference. Plenty of people want to know WHY a crime was committed. That’s how they do profiling for starters.