Jesus Doesn't Want Interstate Wine Shipments

Reverend Mark Creech has posted a column against direct wine shipments at Agape Press, an offering of the Christian News Service. Rev. Creech goes into the traditional rational spouted by the WSWA and others, but adds one interesting reason why direct shipments should be prohibited:

It's ironic to me that at approximately the same time the Supreme Court was considering arguments in favor of wine sales over the Internet, Israeli archaeologists and their American counterparts were announcing they had found the city of Cana, the place where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine. But before one is quick to argue that what happened in Cana is proof of Jesus' approval of wine drinking, it should be noted that the alcoholic content of the wine of Jesus' day was considerably less than the fortified wines of today -- equating the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Moreover, Jesus would have never approved the actions of a bunch of greedy Internet wine retailers who were determined to distribute "strong drink" at the expense of the nation's children.

Kim Marcus, at Wine Spectator Online, has posted an excellent rebuttal to the article, although he doesn't get into whether Jesus would have approved or dissapproved of wine shipments. According to Marcus:

[These] claims were exposed as unfounded in 2003 with the release of a Federal Trade Commission report on the subject of direct wine shipments. At the time, FTC chairman Timothy Muris said, "E-commerce can offer consumers lower prices, greater choices, and increased convenience. In wine and other markets, however, anticompetitive barriers to e-commerce are depriving consumers of those benefits." The report concluded that the dozen states then allowing direct shipments reported few or no problems with underage access, due to signature requirements, age verification procedures and supplier permits.