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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 18283
[Civil]
Date Posted:
7/28/2007
8:03:51 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,072
RSS: 15,942
Comments: 13
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Government-Sanctioned Prayer On Trial
Author: Paul Dellinger Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Title: GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED PRAYER ON TRIAL
Steve Spradlin felt so strongly about having invocations at public meetings that he stepped down momentarily as Montgomery County supervisors chairman to make it happen.
"I'm personally not trying to ram anything down any board member's throat," he said in making a motion for the board to have an opening prayer Monday night, but "this is an item very close to my heart."
The motion passed, with only one supervisor voting against it -- John Muffo.
"The minority of people in Montgomery County who are not Christians and pay county taxes will have to sit and listen to Christian invocations and will not be represented when that happens," Muffo said later. He wondered how those favoring invocations would feel about one from "the Quran or some Hindu holy text or something like that."
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Community Thoughts: There are 13 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Oh Please!!! | Jul 29th. at 2:06:14 am EDT
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CallaLily (New Lenox, Illinois) - Email Me
Separation of Church and State. It's there for a reason...to avoid using tax payers dollars for the time spent on useless discussions such as this one.
These are intelligent people. They can't just silently say a prayer on their own?
Don't they have more pressing issues to discuss?
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| I Just Wanna Know.... | Jul 28th. at 10:05:28 pm EDT
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Katmandu (elba, Alabama) - Email Me
how people would feel if the roles here were reversed. How would people out there feel if the major religion in this country was something other than Christianity? Would the Christians be as pissy with us as we seem to be with them over issues like this?
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| It's Supposed To Be An Invocation | Jul 28th. at 8:18:42 pm EDT
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
So who are they invoking? When I "invoke" some diety, I am not just praying to them. I hear hitler used to invoke Thor before speaking to the public - may just be a rumor.
Perhaps invoking one of the gods/goddesses having to do with justice or maybe even good sense would be a good idea - instead of Kali who seems to be invoked a lot as a goddess of change by chaos.
Everyone knows the christians do not read all of their book and follow very little of it in practice. I sincerely hope that when they die, their belief has created the god and system they believe in because so few have lived up to its requirements.
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| Marsh Paradox | Jul 28th. at 6:21:00 pm EDT
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
We open this meeting with the following agenda for cases to be considered. Now, before further proceedings, let us venture deep into the woods for four days of fasting and reflection on how to best address these issues as responsible stewards of nature. We shall reconvene here at sunrise on the fourth day to share those visions.
BANG!!!! (Taoist monk cleansing chi by dropping an M-80 or equivalent large firework into the center of the meeting room, without speaking a word.)
As a reflection of our perfect love and perfect trust (in poly-ticks?) , we now join in a skyclad spiral dance which connects this meeting room with yonder lake and large oak and ash and thorn.
To have any public meeting prayer which is truly inclusive of just those religions willing to be pandered around, all of the above would be required, except that in the latter, it's intentionally exclusionary. Those not sharing in that love and trust, be off with you, the same message which faux-xtian pandering sends to honest Christians and pagans alike.
What would it take to include an atheist or humanist demanding simply compliance with secular rule of law? How about a charge that all Council members who enacted a public preyer program eat sh!t, fvck off, and die, as they're fundamentally incapable of doing their legal duties, and that once the bodies are cremated, any remaining may proceed to conduct public business? In Virginia, that would likely result in efforts to criminally prosecute the persons raising that convocation, as it would violate a state statute of the same type as flag desecration law abused as an excuse to censor speech which the Supreme Court has already clearly ruled is highly protected and any such censorship codes cannot legitimately trump. The rabid fundies then claim such speech is harmful to minors, while civil libertarians counter that any harm to minors from witnessing citizens exercising such civil rights instead is a product of child abuse by parents, pathological churches, and other institutions which are used to prop up broken dogma rather than teach kids life skills compatible with our society and its core legal standards.
After that fight prevents a functional meeting and finds some Council members and citizens in jail, the serious issue still isn't resolved, because those who don't believe in public pandering of their paths are still defined as second class citizens.
Stipulating the issues Youngermoon raises as a starting point, "Marsh" (MARSH v. CHAMBERS, 463 U.S. 783 (1983) ) could offer a functional basis for handling this, if but only if our courts operated honestly, which the 4th Circuit is very skilled at avoiding. If interpreted based on an honest record of legal "fact", Marsh results in a paradox, in as much as the legal equal protections of religion it pretends to require cannot be realized in our current society, and so it would ban all such government sponsored religious rituals unless and until society itself changes to be far less diverse than is likely any time in the future history of the USA.
While that paradox was discussed in ACLU of VA Board meetings and by its legal panel and counsel prior to the Simpson appeal (I raised that discussion in those meetings) , a mix of tactical choices by counsel and a draw of some of the worst judges in the 4th Circuit prevented useful case law from being developed around that fraud in the intended application of Marsh. Perhaps another case in the 9th or some other less broken Circuit could start not from the equal access to broken process posture Cyndi asserted, but the larger set of issues raised above and by some of the Amicus parties to "Simpson", to attempt an end run that doesn't challenge bad 1983 case law, but rather establishes a record of "fact" which converts existing "law" to a sieve?
The alternative in our Constitutional design is to shoot or hang the county supervisors, SCOTUS black robed lynchmen, and other corrupt politicians contributing to the problem, rather than doing their duties to be parts of the solution. With the extent of prejudices among citizens electing corrupt leaders, and fascist nature of our police states, that would likely not accomplish the Constitutionally intended results, still leaving us challenged to find tactics to end these abuses of government powers.
Another option would to work to change systems which tend to ignore Constitutional standards, in defining what in practice amounts to illegal child abuse, or psychiatric pathology constituting a danger to others. If the underlying professional standards for such things could be shifted to instead of recognizing common behaviors as if normal, define as abuse or danger actions which result in kids not ready to function in diverse society as broad as our theoretical civil rights and social diversity, or those adults using violence to deprive others of civil rights via government viewed as no different than vigilante criminal mobs, there could be some interesting effects on society over the next generation.
Absent some tactics to accomplish revolutionary changes, this is likely to remain an ongoing problem for many years.
These issues of oppression are not mere hypotheticals, but ones of violent crime. Every use of government power backed by gangs of mercenary thugs is a form of violent crime, whether anyone is kidnapped, assaulted, or shot by those gangs, or if they operate merely by threats and intimidation, but very clearly backed by the ability to impose direct violence to anyone who doesn't submit. Both the gang mercenaries, and their mob bosses in suits, belong in prison for at least as long sentences as other violent criminals merely perpetrating lone incidents or random patterns of equivalent serious violent crimes, in far smaller numbers than we are victimized by shotgun blasts of corrupt government power.
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| Silence Is Golden... | Jul 28th. at 3:18:20 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
If they insist on a moment of anything- silence is the best option. I wouldn't want any prayer as government sanctioned, not even my own. There are too may faiths out there to give any one an arrogant top spot.
I still say that the only government sanctioned prayer is done in silence at election time just after the polls close and the votes are counted. And that's the only time!
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| Christian Prayer For Public Meetings | Jul 28th. at 3:06:55 pm EDT
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Lora (Leominster, Massachusetts) - Email Me
"Fellow Americans, let us begin this meeting with a reading from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 6:
'when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. '
Let us therefore pray for humility, which has called us to be servants of the public, not the masters. Let us work here for the good of the least of us, as Jesus taught us compassion instead of wrath. We can be assured by the Gospels that God knows the faith and needs of all of us, whether we speak them openly or not--and that a private faith shall be blessed indeed. Lord, give us humility and compassion in our thoughts this day, amen."
No Christian public servant or chaplain hired for the occasion will ever give this invocation. It will never happen. Christian humility and compassion is now extinct, and I can only dream of what it might be like if the Dominionists read their own bible.
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| Why A Prayer ? | Jul 28th. at 1:47:14 pm EDT
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Crystal Crone (Burnley, England) - Email Me
Does it have to be a prayer from any faith ? Why can there not be just a pledge to world peace, health and care of all living things on our planet ? I am so rattled by the continual push by mainstream faiths, as they jostle one another for pole position. A bit more time spent on making life better in this world, and worrying less about their "hereafter" would not go amiss.
The only surety as I see it is that the Great Mother Goddess will not add up any prayers given by any faiths, when she runs out of patience with the human race. If we can't learn to co-exist in peace, harmony and respect then she will take matters out of our hands. Sadly, there will be no "winners trophy" then ! Whatever your faith, may you always know your priorities and respect those of others, and remember that any prayer is only as good as the "heart" of the person praying. Blessed Be.
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| Incredible | Jul 28th. at 10:01:15 am EDT
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Erihu (Sunset Beach, North Carolina) - Email Me
There is no reason they cannot start a meeting by saying 'We will now have a moment of silence for those who wish to pray for guidence'. EXCEPT, of course, then they wouldn't be able to push their own faith on others.
I may have missed it, but I didn't see that they would allow other faith leaders to offer the invocation. If they do, then please, someone offer a prayer 'in the name of the Goddess'. See how they like that. I know it sounds vindictive, but d*mn turnabout is fair play.
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| Well. . . | Jul 28th. at 9:46:13 am EDT
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Dynnys Derwydd (Lubbock, Texas) - Email Me
. . .a part of me wonders why a "moment of silence" cannot become universal? With a moment of silence one can pray if that's your choice, or just silently meditate upon the day's activities, whether school or work.
I think this is true especially after speaking to many who predate Madeline Murray's date with the Supreme Coart, who when asked will tell you, "Don't really remember prayer in school accept at commencements and the like. Usually we said the Pledge of Allegience (and many remember a time before God was added to that illustrious pledge) followed by a moment of silence."
Many so-called Christians are as bad as neo-Nazis when it comes to historical revision. They claim rights and priveleges they never had and feel. If the bodhisattva Yeshua were alive today I know what words would come out of his mouth, "HYPOCRITES, LAWYERS, and PHARISEES!"
Quite frankly I make the sign of the Goddess often in front of others, and one day I'm going to get a group together to go Yule carolling. Wanna slap my face with your religion? Fine, I'll just slap back and harder. Especially since most Christian holidays were picked from the pockets of paganism.
Fight with knowledge, not in ignorance.
honi soit qui mal y pense,
Dynnys Derwydd
"Time to take back what is ours, or make 'em pay royalties!"
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| They Never Get It ... | Jul 28th. at 9:03:38 am EDT
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Ananta Androscoggin (Greene, Maine) - Email Me
even though "IT" is their entire point of insisting on having prayer at meetings of government officials:
They are making a public declaration that nobody but those who pray just like they do are even going to have a chance at getting a fair deal from that particular governmental body. Who wants to go to a government meeting and have such a huge hint that they don't count, that they shouldn't even bother being present, that they have little chance of even being heard, in this "land of the free" which is so much bandied about?
And if that isn't a "governmental sanctioned religion" taking its unconstitutional primacy in the public forum, then I'm a "dues paying member of the Westboros" (as it were) .
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