Response

Since several BSC alums read this blog, I have decided to address the church arsons and the Colleges response to these crimes.

Over the past couple of days I have read several articles about the arrests of the BSC students and the community's reaction to these "shocking" turn of events. First of all, of course people are shocked. Generally one does not willingly hang out with people you would automatically assume would burn down churches. If you do, that means you have extremely low standards for friendship. Secondly, the president of Birmingham-Southern released a statement about the arrests and noted that the permissive use of alcohol in today's youth culture contributed to the arsons. People, I have been drunk many, many times - on BSC's campus no less - and I have NEVER considered setting fire to anything. If anything, I was more fascinated by fire as a child and more likely to play with matches at this time and I certainly wasn't a hard drinkin' eight year old. Lots of people make bad decisions when they drink and I am certainly one of them, but to suggest that one would travel to the middle of the woods and set fire to numerous churches as a result of alcohol consumption is a cop out. Lastly, from what has been reported, the students said the fires started as a joke that got out of hand. That's plain old crap. You don't burn down churches as a joke. It is a malicious act that is intended to hurt people. One of the articles in the Birmingham News noted that two of the students were Satanists, but they weren't worshipping Satan - it was just about the "pursuit of knowledge." Once again, that's crap. The whole thing is a bunch of BULLSHIT on their part and I hope that when they are sentenced the judge throws away the key.

And that's all I have to say on the subject.