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I’M SORRY, I DON’T PRAY THAT WAY
Good morning, sinners.
A number of people have asked me why I haven’t posted anything about the National Day Of Prayer being ruled unconstitutonal, which has given Sarah Palin an excuse to revive the old “America is a Christian nation because the Founding Fathers were Christians except for that one guy, Thomas whashisname, and he doesn’t count because the history books don’t mention him, so let’s base all our laws on the Ten Commandments” routine.
Well, I've been dithering over it for awhile, because to be honest, I’m not sure what I can add. Sure, the Founding Fathers/Ten Commandments meme is easily debunked, but so what? As if historical accuracy has anything to do with this. When conservatives are rewriting history books to stack the deck in their argument that the Founding Fathers intended for America to be based on Biblical law, yr factual argument is useless against such dingbats.
As for the National Day Of Prayer, you can probably guess how I feel about it: it’s a completely unnecessary holiday originally designed to let politicians show off their Christian chops, and now basically serves as a handy wedge issue for the culture wars.
But is it unconstitutional? I confess, I’m not 100% sure about that. I do take the point from Judge Crabb that prayer is an inherently religious act with no secular purpose. So the NDoP is designed to encourage a religious activity.
However, the NDoP isn’t a law in the strictest sense – it’s not like yr risking arrest and a jail term by not praying, not least because it’s impossible to enforce. Also, it doesn’t specify any particular religion (which is fairly clearly prohibited in the 1A Establishment clause). You can pray to Zeus, Cthulhu, the Demon Of Fire, the Levitating Pasta Monkey or Lucy Pinder if you want to, and Congress can’t stop you. Some argue that the NDoP establishes a general civil religion, but I’m not really convinced it’s the same thing.
Either way, the appeals process will take a few years, during which the NDoP will remain in force (those Obama conspiracy chain emails not withstanding), so we’ll see how it goes. But I’d be surprised if the Supreme Court backed Crabb on this.
CLARIFICATON: I don’t have anything against prayer as a personal or private activity, which is why I think it’s silly to set aside a specific govt-approved day for something believers do every day.
But it’s also why I think it says a lot that here in the 21st century, so many people (the US govt included) think the NDoP is vital to America’s interests, and that it’s important for the US govt to rally the nation together in order to make an emotional, supernatural appeal to an unseen force to break the laws of the universe for yr convenience (to paraphrase Emo Philips) as though prayer is more likely to work if the entire country is doing it, and the nation will be weakened if we don’t.
Especially since a lot of the same people currently claim the same US govt is evil and intrusive into their personal lives.
I’m just saying.
Like a prayer,
This is dF
A number of people have asked me why I haven’t posted anything about the National Day Of Prayer being ruled unconstitutonal, which has given Sarah Palin an excuse to revive the old “America is a Christian nation because the Founding Fathers were Christians except for that one guy, Thomas whashisname, and he doesn’t count because the history books don’t mention him, so let’s base all our laws on the Ten Commandments” routine.
Well, I've been dithering over it for awhile, because to be honest, I’m not sure what I can add. Sure, the Founding Fathers/Ten Commandments meme is easily debunked, but so what? As if historical accuracy has anything to do with this. When conservatives are rewriting history books to stack the deck in their argument that the Founding Fathers intended for America to be based on Biblical law, yr factual argument is useless against such dingbats.
As for the National Day Of Prayer, you can probably guess how I feel about it: it’s a completely unnecessary holiday originally designed to let politicians show off their Christian chops, and now basically serves as a handy wedge issue for the culture wars.
But is it unconstitutional? I confess, I’m not 100% sure about that. I do take the point from Judge Crabb that prayer is an inherently religious act with no secular purpose. So the NDoP is designed to encourage a religious activity.
However, the NDoP isn’t a law in the strictest sense – it’s not like yr risking arrest and a jail term by not praying, not least because it’s impossible to enforce. Also, it doesn’t specify any particular religion (which is fairly clearly prohibited in the 1A Establishment clause). You can pray to Zeus, Cthulhu, the Demon Of Fire, the Levitating Pasta Monkey or Lucy Pinder if you want to, and Congress can’t stop you. Some argue that the NDoP establishes a general civil religion, but I’m not really convinced it’s the same thing.
Either way, the appeals process will take a few years, during which the NDoP will remain in force (those Obama conspiracy chain emails not withstanding), so we’ll see how it goes. But I’d be surprised if the Supreme Court backed Crabb on this.
CLARIFICATON: I don’t have anything against prayer as a personal or private activity, which is why I think it’s silly to set aside a specific govt-approved day for something believers do every day.
But it’s also why I think it says a lot that here in the 21st century, so many people (the US govt included) think the NDoP is vital to America’s interests, and that it’s important for the US govt to rally the nation together in order to make an emotional, supernatural appeal to an unseen force to break the laws of the universe for yr convenience (to paraphrase Emo Philips) as though prayer is more likely to work if the entire country is doing it, and the nation will be weakened if we don’t.
Especially since a lot of the same people currently claim the same US govt is evil and intrusive into their personal lives.
I’m just saying.
Like a prayer,
This is dF