On Jul 24, 2008, at Thu, Jul 24, 2:51 PM, Gordon James Klingenschmitt wrote:
> Professors Lund and Essenberg seek the larger question, which I > believe seems to involve whether a government can pray, at all. We > all agree individuals can pray, and the First Amendment protects > individual speech by private citizens. But can governments pray? Ostensibly, one particular form of government can pray; a theocracy. I suppose a monarchy such as the United Kingdom can pray as well, if the monarch is also the head of the state church. However, we are a representative democracy, and if *our* government prays, the prayer will of necessity be sectarian, and therefore exclusionary of other sects, and by default will be endorsing one religion over another and thus we have ipso facto a state religion. All well and fine it it's *your* religion, but not so fine if its not *your* religion. Perhaps, Mr. Klingenschmitt, your question should be "should governments pray?". To which I would answer a resounding, emphatic, "Not just no, but HELL NO!" Jean Dudley _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
