No Southern Hospitality For Atheists

http://www.bastropenterprise.com/features/x2132687894/Student-challenges-prayer-at-Bastrop-graduation
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/hed7y/threatened_to_contact_aclu_for_prayer_at/
http://www.blaghag.com/2011/05/atheist-high-schooler-receives-death.html
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/standard_small_town_saga.php
http://friendlyatheist.com/2011/05/21/what-happened-at-damon-fowlers-graduation/

This topic jumped out at me due to my near addictive interest in issues of church and state. Just recently in Louisiana the graduation at the local high school in Bastrop, Louisiana proceeded with a student directly violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause; in a pretty duplicitous manner, might I add. This was a willful and unjustified protest against the changes the school put in place, responding to Damon Fowler, a fellow secularist, and his allegation that they were not only violating the Constitution, but Louisiana state law, which has a similar provision against laws that discriminated against or favored any religion. Technically atheism is not a religion, but one can instead claim that it was favoring Christianity, and since this is a state sponsored institution, a public high school, doing an invocation that favors a particular religion is unconstitutional. Here’s the first of two different videos involving willful defiance against the change in the program from a prayer to a moment of silence. The student in question, Laci Mattice, stated at the beginning of the ceremonies that she was originally going to lead an invocation, but that she was instead told to lead a moment of silence. I don’t see why leading a moment of silence is less important than leading a prayer. The worst part of this was her trying to weasel out of her official duties by disclaiming that before she “fulfilled [her] obligation” she wanted to thank God for helping her graduate; because she really needed to pray to be the salutatorian instead of actually studying. Afterwards, she tried to sound amicable to nonbelievers by asking that those who believed as she did bow their heads to pray. But she never temporarily suspended her duties with those disclaimers; it doesn’t work that way. As personal and individual as she tried to make it, she was sponsored by the school in that position and she had no right to do that prayer regardless of her personal beliefs or being offended by the replacing of the “traditional” invocation with a moment of silence. Pure and simple, she was not only in dereliction of her official duties, but she was spitting in the face of religious freedom. And don’t tell me that her letting all the Christians bow their heads was being charitable to non Christians. She wanted to shove this prayer down everyone’s throats in direct opposition to the school itself telling her that she could not do a prayer. And what does the school do? They sit by as the status quo is maintained even in spite of an affirmation to the contrary by the school authorities. There’s a time and place for being religious and thanking your creator for academic success, and it’s called the baccalaureate. Quite possibly, the first video might have been a baccalaureate, but the sources suggest this was related to, but not the same as, the graduation ceremony itself.

This video, however, seems to be the graduation ceremony, where the same student proceeds to go with a nearly identical process. She says she respects other people’s beliefs, but then proceeds to disrespect them by saying that her desire to thank Jesus trumps the rights of everyone to not hear it in a public context sponsored by the state. She asks her fellow students to join in, again trying to slip around the school sponsored prayer bit, but you can clearly hear the audience joining in, so she might as well have just announced to everyone, “Hey, we’re having a prayer, even though they told us we can’t legally do it. They can’t touch us, we’re the majority!” It’s a contemptible display of majority tyranny. Tennessee can be pretty bad about it in certain regions, but I can’t recall getting even a minute vibe similar to this travesty. And in both instances, they give a pittance of time for the moment of silence, maybe 15 seconds, while they get at least twice that length for their own public soapbox to condescendingly preach.

The student in question, Damon Fowler, was reported by his brother to have gotten death threats from some people. Couple this with the social ostracism from a class that’s practically the same size as mine in a relatively small area and it’s amazing he hasn’t been outright attacked. This whole incident was an unnecessary and unfounded vindication of a majority’s wants over a minority’s needs. Atheists don’t want to be treated like everyone else; they deserve and need to be treated like everyone else. For someone to ask their classmates, even nicely, to pray is to isolate non Christian students. But with the community at large cheering this girl on, it just reinforces this negative tradition that anyone not in the majority religion should sit by and let their supposed guarantee of freedom from state sponsored religion get trampled on.

Any Christian reader should not get the idea that I have a problem with students praying privately and reading their bible in non class contexts at school. My problem is with people being so proud of their own faith that once they’ve realized they are in a majority, they think they deserve special treatment. Even if they preface it by saying other people have their right to believe or not, when you use a position of authority like this to pray your specific prayer, you instate the exact opposite feeling which you were trying to inspire before. It only makes religious diversity seem all the less likely when you think being a majority religion or a religion of many founding fathers gives you carte blanche to speak openly about it with no fear of persecution. Not to mention it clashes with an admonition from Jesus himself in Matthew 6:5 that you should pray privately to God, so as not to seem like a hypocrite who wants to be seen by everyone as religious. Your outward behavior is not what God cares about, from what I understand; it’s your internal convictions. And aren’t we supposed to be in the last days where Christians are persecuted? Clearly these kids aren’t worried that Christians will be persecuted since they feel they can just pray a Christian prayer and no government will get on them. I only hope the ACLU and FFRF get on the school about this, though I’m not sure of the exact intervention they could do at this point. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Pledge of Allegiance, Old and New

While I haven’t seen many billboards across Tennessee that are religious in nature that are surprising, this new campaign in North Carolina is a welcome change. I’m actually surprised this didn’t happen sooner, but I hope this will catch on. The gist is putting up an American flag pattern with the words “One Nation Indivisible” on it. The catch here that people will quickly recognize is the absence of two words in between nation and indivisible, “Under God”. The reason for this is that there are only so many people in the generation that existed before the pledge was “edited” so to speak in 1954 with the threat of “godless communists” on the rise in Soviet Russia. My great grandmother would be one of them, but I can’t imagine what she’d think. Patriotism is probably in her blood, but the explicitly theistic aspect of the pledge as it exists now is something I don’t know her perspective on. The point of this message put together by the North Carolina Secular Association is to demonstrate that one can be patriotic and be proud to serve one’s country and yet not believe in God.

The pledge was indeed written by a former minister, but as any historian could point out, the original text was not explicitly religious. I honestly haven’t said the pledge in a while, but if it came up, I would omit “under God” from my recitation, reflecting what is probably a counter-cultural vein of thought. Not to mention I equally dismiss the phrase “In God We Trust” that has become our standard national motto. The original motto was “E Pluribus Unum”, translating roughly to “Out of many, one”. This motto can be found on virtually anything associated with America before 1956, only two years after the addition of “Under God” to the pledge of allegiance. In that decade, along with amending the pledge of allegiance and changing the official national motto, the National Day of Prayer was also instituted earlier than either in 1952. With this theme in mind, anyone born within the span of the 1950s seems to differ in one distinct way from people that are my grandparents’ age. This is not to say that everyone in my parents’ generation along with my own is explicitly devout in their practice of Christianity as the majority religion in the country. But there is a likely association in their minds between being patriotic and believing in God. This may not be the case for all, but the persistence of the use of “under God” in the pledge, the national motto on the currency being “In God We Trust” and the recent controversy surrounding the challenge of the constitutionality of the National Day of Prayer, it’s reasonable to see how people have been slowly conditioned into supporters in some manner or another of the idea that the United States is a Christian nation.

While I won’t get into the details of how problematic the claim is on various levels, I will say this; this nation is religiously diverse for the same reason we are ethnically and racially diverse. Without this diversity, there is less room for progress and understanding between these different groups. Blacks wouldn’t have civil rights, nor would GLBT people (even though this status is still in question in the 21st century) and there would potentially still be the insistence on an innate superiority of Western ideals over and against Eastern ideals. But with the persistence of the original motto of the U.S., we can at least see that not every person who respects the country believes that what it stands for is a religious/faith based statement, but one of tolerance and openness to understanding the myriad cultures and people that take the time to become naturalized and official citizens of this country. One’s belief or lack thereof in the Abrahamic God should not be what people initially ask and indeed it seems like a later question asked to a foreigner. But with the idea still persisting in our mentality through the influence of those changes enacted in the 1950’s, it is not a bad idea to be cautious and aware of the potential misunderstandings and problems that can still arise with people that are either ill educated or sheltered from an idea intrinsic to the country’s founding; that of a collective of individuals that share common ideals, even with such different beliefs on other things. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha

The Military and the Cross

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_carson_cross
Even though I’ve already put in my two cents on the recent scandal with the National Day of Prayer, I found this short article this morning and thought I’d do a quick commentary on it. A symbol at an army hospital, Evans Army Community Hospital, at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs is being appealed to be removed since not only is the emblem a cross with a pointed base (allegedly used by Christian pilgrims to mark a camp site) but the phrase in Latin translates to “For God and humanity”. The representative Lt. Col. Steve Wollman argues that the symbol has been accepted by the army since 1969 and that references to doctors serving God and humanity go back to Hippocrates, the originator of the Hippocratic Oath used unofficially by many doctors today. The problem with that argument is that the original text swears to Apollo, Asclepius and Panacea among other Greek deities. Ancient Greeks weren’t disposed to swearing to one creator God in their times, so noting that medical pledges to gods in the ancient times were common practice doesn’t mean that it should be the case now, especially with the religious diversity of the army that is recognized today.

I imagine the reason this symbol has even persisted as long as it has is due in part to the Latin itself, which not many people are especially fluent in or able to read well enough to translate the explicit Abrahamic reference to god with a capital G. Not to mention they could’ve written it off with the pointed base of the cross differing enough from Christian crosses to be considered neutral. According to Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the association of the cross image with Middle Age Christianity and the Crusade mentality of spreading the faith across the world would send a negative message to Muslims and even soldiers associated with the hospital; that message being that the U.S. army is waging some Christian war on terror and more explicitly, Islam in the Middle East. And at least half of the people that lodged the complaint anonymously (because they didn’t want their superiors to know about it, making me that much less inclined to associate with the military at all; thanks conscientious objector status) were Protestant or Catholic, so to say this is some attack on Christianity by non Christians is an absurd argument. All in all, I can’t see why the group can’t use another symbol. Especially since it occurs to me that the military is not exactly one to accept standing out a great deal, valuing conformity to tradition and authority over needless self expression. To say the army wants robots for soldiers is another topic in itself, but changing the symbol shouldn’t be a large change. Using the symbol of the Red Cross would be a better choice in my eyes, however religious in nature it may initially appear. Anyway, until my next article, Namaste and Aloha.

Church, State and Prayer

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/25/obama.graham/index.html?hpt=T2

http://www.newsweek.com/id/236904

The last issue I even blogged on with the President in detail was Obama meeting with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who has taken time off from his travels. In more recent news, President Obama met with church icon (get it?) Billy Graham. I’m amazed Graham’s still alive, but I suppose he is the lesser of two evils with Pat Robertson still alive. He and President Obama, along with his son, the more controversial Franklin Graham, spoke on various issues of faith in the presidency. Billy Graham has been well known for being the so called “pastor to the presidents”, having counseled at least 12 other presidents in his lifetime, which is a monumental achievement. However little meaning I may find in the message he preaches, I do admire his devotion to the passion he found in his life. The two discussed also their love of golf (what man in his 50s and above doesn’t love golf a bit?) and Chicago (Obama’s alma mater and a place where Billy Graham started some radio broadcasting). Graham Sr. gave the president two bibles, after which the two men prayed for each other and left for other important ventures. Graham’s son, Franklin, had been recently uninvited to speak at the Pentagon for the upcoming National Day of Prayer (which I’ll talk a little more about in relation to the second article by Jon Meacham), because he was a tad insensitive to Muslim issues. He spoke on CNN that true Islam is apparently all the extreme use of shariah law, including beating your wife because you suspect her of adultery. He tried to save his hide from the rebound of the insult to more moderate Muslims, but evidently it didn’t work in his favor, since he was basically denied his “commission”. He said he had Muslim friends, but that he didn’t like how Islam was practiced in the predominately Muslim world in the Middle East as he has been there in the past.

Of course, this isn’t the only controversy or issue of interest; Obama praying with Billy Graham and son is more something people would find positive things from. The striking down of the National Day of Prayer as unconstitutional, however, has been met with opposition by Obama’s administration. To advertise an acquaintance’s blog I occasionally read (http://indefenseoftheconstitution.blogspot.com) he argues that the 1st Amendment does not extend to government involvement with religious practices, prayer being the one that was argued by Barbara Crabb to be something the government should not have a say on. While I respectfully disagree, I can see how the issue might be of importance as he is a strong Christian believer, while I am not anything Christian except in lineage of sorts (raised Christian that is). The alleged wording on the National Day of Prayer is a suggestion, a voluntary choice. But even if this is so and prayer is not being forced, which according to Mr. Luna would violate the separation of church and state in terms of establishment, there is a compelling argument that church and state’s separation should extend to the explicitly religious behaviors, including prayer. While giving a moment of silence is one thing, giving an open moment of prayer does seem to suggest more explicitly the advocacy of pleading to a personal deity to answer some humble request. If the government, according to the establishment clause, should pass no law respecting an establishment of religion, one can interpret it to extend to passing a law that says that people “may pray to God”. There is a border where religion is granted its freedom to practice (in any way that does not violate other Constitutional standards of free speech and religious practice by association, such as libel/slander and the like) and the state does not overstep its bounds to legislate laws about religious practice in any way, shape or form or restrict religious practice beyond reason. Suggesting that the government have a say about the religious practice of prayer does appear to cross the border we give religion as an individual and communal practice of believers.

Jon Meacham’s argument in particular, leans on the religious call for prudence in regards to the government and its sanction of religion. Long before Thomas Jefferson, there were others (Puritan thinkers of some stripe or another) that argued that religion and state should stay separate because they are in decidedly different spheres. Religion has its own structure of authority and loyalty to God, while the state has its own authority structure and loyalties to the people it governs. It is similar to Jesus’ call in Matthew 22:21, to “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. In this way, I am not advocating, nor is Jon Meacham, a complete isolation of the two. State officials cannot help in their rendering of their government duties to sometimes reflect on their regard to the divine in some form or fashion. Barack Obama recently prayed for the 29 victims of the mining disaster in West Virginia, the Justices perform their duties according to particular religious beliefs, Antonin Scalia coming to mind, and even the Supreme Court opens with a prayer (which may be rendered by many different chaplains of different faiths, such as Hindus, at least once to my memory). The involvement of religion in the lives of representatives should not be denied or suppressed, but the role of religion in their lives should be restricted within reason to the extent that they neither legislate laws supporting any explicitly religious practice, nor limit the legitimate practice of religion in the private lives of the citizens of the country. If anything, this ruling may go either way, but Jon Meacham’s concluding dilemma raises a good consideration of at least two outcomes of the appeal, “the choice between a government-sanctioned religious moment and the perpetuation of a culture in which religion can take its own stand, free from the corruptions of the world”. So religion can either be independent and yet related to federal issues, in the sense of a civil religious culture, or it can be intertwined with government, leaving a gap open to potential theocratic justifications. Which would you choose? Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.