Something Rotten in the State of North Carolina

By (O)CT(O)PUS

There seems to be a callous, "fuck-you" attitude metastasizing cancer-like throughout the state of North Carolina.  Recently, former Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned newly enacted voter suppression laws in North Carolina, warning fellow Republicans: “These kinds of actions do not build on the base. It just turns people away."

Now, authoritarians in the state of North Chinalina Carolina are turning against religious groups that minister to the poor:

Raleigh Police Threaten to Arrest Church Volunteers for Feeding the Homeless: 

Nearly every weekend morning for six years [my bold], church groups have passed out free biscuits and coffee to the homeless at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh, N.C. This Saturday at 9 a.m., when volunteers from Love Wins Ministries arrived, 100 sausage biscuits and coffee carafes in hand, Raleigh police officers met them on the sidewalk and threatened to arrest them if they passed out the food. 

A city ordinance, officers said, banned food distribution in public parks. 

Hugh Hollowell, an ordained Mennonite minister and the executive director of Love Wins, was outraged. The ordinance was no surprise — the city requires that groups purchase an $800 permit to use the park, and since that would require non-profits to pay $1,600 per weekend to distribute food, Love Wins never sets up in the park but on the sidewalk along its edge [my bold].  $1,600 could, after all, buy a lot of biscuits and coffee. 

More than 70 people had already lined up outside the park for the free breakfast when the cops issued their threat. Soup kitchens do not operate in the county or city on the weekends, and so the Love Wins breakfast is one of the only ways the homeless can have a free, warm breakfast on the weekends. Feeding the homeless, Hollowell told TIME, is a spiritual calling. 

Love Wins is not the only group in Raleigh that has been told to cease and desist in recent weeks. Church in the Woods and Human Beans Together, two groups that also serve meals downtown, report being told to stop feeding the homeless without prior notice, too. 

“Rather than threatening to arrest people for sharing food with people experiencing homelessness, these folks should be applauded for dealing with the hunger that is faced daily by the homeless population nationwide,” said Jerry Jones, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “Cities are just trying to cut off homeless people’s source of food in hopes of forcing them out of downtown areas.”

How low can North Chinalina Carolina go!