Lies, Lies, Lies! We Have No Idea What We Mean!

The two members of the Connecticut State Legislature, steaming over the ridicule and brickbats they've received over their recently introduced and blatantly unconstitutional bill, one that would "strip [Catholic] dioceses of all financial control of parishes and leave bishops and priests to over see 'matters pertaining exclusively to religious tenets and practices' while a board of elected laypersons oversees parish finances," have spoken up at last.

"That is not the truth and the facts do not support such a claim," Sen. Andrew McDonald and Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said in a joint statement. "In reality this bill was proposed and written by a group of faithful Catholic parishioners from Fairfield County who asked the Judiciary Committee to consider giving the subject a public hearing."

[snip]

--We decided to give these parishioners a chance to present to the judiciary committee a case for their proposed revisions to existing corporate law," McDonald and Lawlor said. "A lot of misinformation has been spread about his proposal and we ourselves are still learning exactly what its impact would be" (emphasis added).

Which means, I guess, "Don't blame us for this idiotic bill, just the idiots we represent; it's not our place to look into silly matters like constitutionality or ramifications."

Multiply those two fools by many, many thousands and you will have a reasonably accurate picture who's running the country these days. God help us.

UPDATE: The bill's been yanked.

A controversial bill that would change the way the Catholic church governs itself has been pulled and a public hearing planned Wednesday on the issue postponed until its constitutionality can be determined.

That shouldn't prove too difficult, even for those geniuses.