All or None - Your Choice
Published July 12th, 2007Today in the Senate, a holy chaplain said the opening prayer. And there was nearly a riot. Now I won’t even start with what’s wrong with there being an opening prayer - but this story indirectly addresses that. See, this holy chaplain wasn’t Catholic. Or Baptist, Lutheran or even Mormon. Nope, not even a Jewish rabbi. He happened to be a Hindu chaplain. And guess what happened? The religious wingnuts went absolutely apeshit:
They shouted “No Lord but Jesus Christ” and “There’s only one true God,” and used the term “abomination.”
Now granted, it wasn’t lawmakers that yelled this. It was individuals in the public gallery. They were promptly (and rightfully) escorted out. But they’re someone’s constituents. Whoever that Senator is should step up and denounce it. In fact, all of them should - every last Senator should go on record somewhere as saying how wrong that was. Because this strikes right at the heart of separation of church and state - if you can’t support someone else’s religion being represented in government, then you damn well better not demand your religion be represented.
I disagree with there being an opening prayer, but I applaud Harry Reid for inviting a non-Christian chaplain to say it. It was the first Hindu chaplain to say the prayer. If the wingnuts want religion in government, fine - but it had better be all the religions, no preference to any one.
Nice, they pulled out abomination. They might want to actually look up the uses of that word in the Bible. Do they scream when shrimp is served in the Senate cafeteria?