Glenn McConnell: Quilting Fool

S.C. Senate President Glenn McConnell is concerned that churches and non-profits won’t be able to raise enough money to “help people” during these difficult economic times.

In fact, he’s so concerned about it that he wants to let them become bookies.

Wait, what?

Of course McConnell steered clear of words like “bets” and “bookies,” choosing instead to focus on fluffier phrases, like “quilts” and “cakes.”

“It makes no sense to me that a member of a church cannot offer a handmade quilt to raffle to raise money for his or her church class,” McConnell said in announcing his proposal yesterday. “It makes no sense to me that a nonprofit group cannot offer 10 cents a chance to raffle a cake to raise money.”

Awwww … Grandma and cake. Seriously, Glenn. You’re turning us the same shade as that Valentine’s apron we gave you, sweetie.

Under that apron, though, McConnell apparently has a Hunley-sized hard-on for all this quilting and baking.

So much so that he’s willing to completely skip the required statewide referendum for a Constitutional change and “allow, immediately upon passage, charities and nonprofit organizations to have a much-needed tool for fundraising.”

Eventually, McConnell also wants to permit people to hold “social games in their private homes.”

Wow … what’s next? Legitimizing NCAA Tournament pools? Legalizing side bets on fantasy baseball?

Look, we’ve got no problem with legalizing gambling, prostitution and more than a few drugs. Hell, we’re libertarians – that’s how we roll.

But this is reactionary pandering, to say nothing of a circumvention of the state’s referendum process.

Bottom line, if you’re gonna come out with a proposal like this, at least have the balls to say what you’re actually doing – which is dramatically opening the door to widespread gambling in South Carolina.

There’s nothing wrong with that in our book, but don’t insult us with churches, grandma and cake – unless of course it’s chocolate cake with white icing, in which case we’ll have a slice.

In the benevolent dictatorship of Sic Willie, gambling, pimping, pot-smoking and other presumed vices would be permitted.

They would also be taxed and regulated only insofar as their revenue was required to perform certain core functions of our government – i.e. roads and the cops who patrol them. And not a whole helluva lot else.

In fact, since we certainly wouldn’t be funding a friggin’ farm marketing subsidy or Dr. Happy Tooth’s latest do-gooder fantasy (or for that matter 90% of the crap our state spends $21 billion on each year), we might not even need that revenue.

Also, everybody knows non-profits are the only folks who are better at bureaucratic scamming than elected officials.

Seriously, you could kick a needy person in the balls and it would probably do them more good than giving money to the United Way.

But hey, McConnell will probably at least get a nice “Hunley quilt” out of the deal …

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