Dobson's World

From Cluster of church fires staggers Alabama county: Investigators seek motive, congregants seek solace amid ruins by Jay Reeves Boston Globe/AP 02/04/06

Seeing five of them erupt in fire early yesterday on a foggy night - three left in smoking ruins, two damaged - has sent a chill through hamlets where lives revolve around twice-a-week worship services.

"It's just sad we have people in this world who are so sick they'd want to do something like this," Edith Wilson said yesterday as she stood near the smoldering, charred remains of Rehobeth Baptist Church, which she has attended off and on since her birth in 1936.

"I got married here in 1957," she said as her husband, Frank, a volunteer firefighter, helped douse embers at the church. ''My daughter got married here in 2001. My brother got married here in 2003. I've got about 75 relatives buried in the cemetery."

Federal and state authorities arrived to assist the Bibb County Sheriff's Department in the investigation, but authorities said there were no immediate suspects or motive.

Tweety (aka, Chris Matthews) suggested - based on nothing but the voices in his own little head apparently - that gays might be the culprits. Since it was Baptist churches that were targeted, it strikes me that Methodists might be a more plausible group to suspect. Sure, there's no grounds at all to think that, either. But that obviously doesn't deter a Big Pundit like Matthews.