Ms. Jean Dudley exactly makes my point! (Albeit in more colorful language :).
Governments should not pray as governments, nor establish non-sectarian
religion as "the government's favored religion" or "the government's favored
non-sectarian god."
ON THE CONTRARY, our form of government was established "to secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America..." which means PROTECTING
each citizen's right to speak their mind, and pray according to personal
conscience, (even in government forums, even as public officials), taking turns
with equal opportunity. Governments do not have souls, and cannot be
religious, but government officials do have souls, so they never shed their
personal religion and personal rights at the door.
John Whitehead with The Rutherford Institute has vowed to appeal Rev.
Turner's case to SCOTUS, with this great quote:
"This ruling shows exactly how dangerous the government speech doctrine
isit extinguishes free speech, stated John W. Whitehead, president of The
Rutherford Institute. If the government can censor speech on the grounds that
it is so-called government speech, it will not be long before this label
becomes a convenient tool for silencing any message that does not conform to
what government officials deem appropriate.
In Jesus,
Chaplain K.
Jean Dudley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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.
