AP Story #fundie

AP Story #fundie msnbc.msn.com

A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate's morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors' gallery.

Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day's Senate session. As he stood at the chamber's podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting "this is an abomination" and other complaints from the gallery.

For several days, the Mississippi-based American Family Association has urged its members to object to the prayer because Zed would be "seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god."

Zed, the first Hindu to offer the Senate prayer, began: "We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds."

[...]

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the protest "shows the intolerance of many religious right activists. They say they want more religion in the public square, but it's clear they mean only their religion."

44 comments

old comment by NonProphet

Hey, IFBaptistGirl. You want to assert that the founding fathers were Christian? Try these on for size:

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
-John Adams (letter to Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 3, 1816)

"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."
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

And lastly, something for you to remember:
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

old comment by Razark

Here's a little story about a Christian nation. It's called Rome. Once upon a time, they were not Christians. They grew strong and powerful. And then, they started feeding Christians to the lions. By the thousands. Every day, the Romans would feed ten thousand Christians to lions. And to punish the Romans for this, your god made that nation grow even larger, and stronger, covering most of the known world at that time.

Then, one Roman leader decided that everyone was going to become Christian. They were all very happy to convert. So Rome became a great Christian country, where everyone was peaceful, and happy, and then they all died. Barbarians invaded them. The country was destroyed.

I guess the moral of this little story is : if you want your country to be big and strong, feed Christians to the lions.

@IFBaptist Girl: You do love your country, right? Get thee to a zoo!

old comment by flipper

It was disgraceful and insulting to every American who believes in religious freedom. But, actually this may be a good thing. It may convince the "powers that be" that an opening prayer violates the whole spirit of "seperation of church and state" and to do away with the whole thing. Especially if other religious groups begin to show up to protest Baptist or Penecostal prayers, afterall if they can't respect other religions or other's rights, why the hell should others respect theirs. Maybe these fundies, with their arrogant racism and bigotry will have caused exactly the opposite effect to what they wished and caused the end of the opening prayer all together. Talk about poetic justice(and "divine retribution" if you believe in the Loving, non-fundie, God).

14 years later, they still hope to impose their particular cultish version of Christianity on the country. In schools and in government if possible. Violating the principles of their society.