Neighbors are turning on neighbors at this point and I am definitely not happy about that. I do like it when the "law" in this country is applied equally regardless of status...ha!.... but when I heard that a group of 8 monks and a friend of theirs were busted by the cops for having a party complete with beer I thought to myself aren't monks not supposed to have beer?
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I don't know a great deal about Buddhism other than the fact that I like it. They are a generally non-violent religion, the temples smell great, and it just seems peaceful. I did think that monks were supposed to abstain from things like drugs and alcohol though. That may or may not be the case but at least right now, everyone is meant to be abstaining from gathering in groups for parties because of what I consider to be silly covid rules right now.
Neighbors to the Wat Pansao complex (Wat just means "temple" in Thai) called police to complain about noise and to report that people were gathering in violation of the Disease Control Act that forbids these sorts of gatherings. The reports go on to try to make the monks look bad by saying they were "enjoying large portions of roast pork along with their beer." So are monks supposed to starve themselves as well? I've seen plenty of fat monks so that can't be the case.
The police didn't show any special treatment to the orange-clad monks and while none of them will do any jail time they were hit with fines (of course) and suspended jail sentences.
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Now if these were rich people I am quite certain they would not have been arrested. Although Buddhist rich people are meant to become monks for a certain minimum amount of time the "profession" is generally occupied by quite poor people beyond the obligatory time period.
There was no leniency shown to these people based on their religious status and several of the monks were "abbots" which I am going to go ahead presume is something above level 1 monk.
They have been removed from the monkhood or "defrocked" as it is called apparently. They have also received suspended prison sentences. I think it's going a bit far and the thing that scares me about all this is that the Thais have gotten to the point where they are willing to turn in their neighbors, even if they are monks, for the sake of Covid compliance.
I'm not a fan of that and I realize that if it was me having a few people over they would call the cops even quicker. Maybe our restaurant that operates as a speakeasy bar should probably lay low for a while because if this is a trend, foreigners are the easiest targets because we don't know how to fight back legally.