The Wall Street Journal this morning carried an excellent story about the five states across the country- Virginia, North Carolina, Washington, Vermont and Mississippi- that are considering various forms of liquor privatization.
The reporters, David Kesmodel and William Spain, got the head of the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists, Jack Knapp, on record that his group of 500 churches opposes the effort and “oppose anything that we think would expand the sale and use of alcohol.”
Knapp’s statement reflects the viewpoint that many social conservatives have traditionally taken toward privatization of liquor sales. They’ve been very comfortable with governmental restrictions on places of sale, hours of sale, and permissible advertising.
McDonnell has argued that profitable privatization can occur without generating any of the social ills that some faith-based opponents have often cited.
Given the stance taken by the Independent Baptists, it will be interesting to see how the Family Foundation (Virginia’s preeminent voice for social conservatism) defines the issue.
Will they share Knapp’s concern that privatization could ultimately impact family’s negatively?
Or will they see it as a matter of getting government out of an enterprise it had no business getting into in the first place?
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