(Via Pharyngula, via Election Central) I had to shake my head at this. Christians like to complain about non-religious people being intolerant of Christianity/religion. Yet, what do they do when the religion isn’t their own? Christian prayers? You’re intolerant if you don’t let us. Non-Christian prayers? An “abomination”. It often becomes painfully clear that they want tolerance for their own views, but intolerance for anyone else’s – yet, amazingly, some Christians don’t even see a double-standard.
Today was a historic first for religion in America’s civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists.
Operation Save America, who was behind the stunt put out a press release that said, in part:
“Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.”
Perhaps they skipped over the Establishment Clause, or the part about no religious test for public office, or Thomas Jefferson’s quote:
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
To say that “placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ” is itself to elevate Christianity above all the other religions, and argues for special privileges for Christianity.
The whole thing reminds me of this:
Before he became the nation’s first Muslim elected to Congress, Democrat Keith Ellison was called “unfit” for Congress by his Republican opponent. And that was just the beginning.
Ellison is setting yet another precedent in January when he takes the oath of office on the Koran, Islam’s holiest book, an event that evoked conservatives to accuse him of deviating his allegiance from the Constitution to Allah.
On Tuesday, conservative radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager wrote: “America is interested in only one book, the Bible.” Directly addressing Ellison, he added “If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.”
Ellison’s Oath On Koran Roils Conservatives
