Methodists and the Alcohol Prohibition


To me, the path of prohibition is the path we can expect for abortion. The two are strikingly similar. Both fired up emotional appeals. With prohibition, it was to save the family from drunk fathers. Plus, it was make us all more prosperous by not missing work because of drink. Alcohol was evil.

No denomination was more outspoken against alcohol than the Methodists. Before prohibition, three Presidents addressed the national Methodist convention. It was smart politics to be for prohibition. It has been "smart politics" to be against abortion. However, Methodist success was its own undoing. The denomination did well talking about a world without alcohol. When it achieved the success it sought, prohibition, it was tossed out of the political mix. No President ever agreed to address the national convention of Methodists after prohibition was defeated. 

President Rosevelt raised a glass to celebrate the end of Prohibition. In the aftermath of an abortion-rights victory in Ohio, we are seeing politicians slowly move away from anti-abortion positions and groups. Trump did not attend the big political rally in Iowa. Ron Desantes signed an anti-abortion bill late at night without the press. Both of these greasy politicians have courted anti-abortion until they were suddenly quiet. It is all a mirror of the prohibition experiment. New venues for consuming alcohol open up every year--on college campuses for example. We can predict abortion will become increasingly accepted. 

Of course, Prohibition and the Roe overturn are different issues and were many decades apart. They have a few important similarities. First, they are both religious at the core. Second, they both move into the personal space of voters. They are not like unemployment, interest rates or the national debt. Third, they are both impossible to enforce without a much larger army of law enforcement.

In some Islamic countries there is enforcement of dress, hair, beards and daily prayer. As I understand it, the enforcement is left by and large to zealous volunteers. I suppose those volunteers are confident their government will support them as they walk about the streets shaming men and women for how the look. That there could be such enforcement of abortion is the dream of Christian nationalists/anti-abortion zealots. Can it happen here? I doubt it. We can look at the smaller Methodist church and see it will not work.

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