Thanks to Dale Price for the heads up on this story.

A Michigan Minister, on probation for a conviction for election tampering of all things, was sent to prison for 3 years for sending a letter to a judge quoting Deuteronomy 28:14-22.

The terms of his probation included “ordering him to stay home, on a tether and observe certain conditions of probation. He was required to refrain from political campaigning, to avoid threatening and intimating behavior, to not use a cell phone and to not associate with any person known to have a criminal conviction. “

Apparently, the judge in the case, not the one he sent the letter to, deemed it to be threatening and sentenced him to jail.

The verse is as follows:

Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them. 15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. [a] 21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.

By all accounts, it appears that the Rev. Edward Pinkney is … how do you say … a bit of a jerk. But 3 years in jail for quoting the Bible? Even the ACLU says …. umm, no.

We just can’t have this sort of thing in the U.S. People might think we are {{{shudder}}} Canadians! Come to think of it, Michigan is very close to Canada. That might explain it.

***Note to our Canadian readers. We know you don’t like it any more than we do. My insensitive remark is merely reflexive and should in no way be construed as impugning all Canadians. There is good and bad in every country. Labatts, John Candy, and Lorne Greene — good. The Human Rights Commission, Michael J. Fox, and Conrad Bain — bad (Conrad Bain was on Maude, need I say more?). I am not sure where to come down on Raymond Burr.