Prayer decision round up - A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Interesting. The presence of the Indiana Blog Review makes me less likely to do “round up posts.” But, in this case, I’m going to go ahead and do one about the ICLU v. Bosma prayer decision. My technorati search of the blogosphere reveals:

X-tra Rant doesn’t believe the prayer decision goes far enough. As an atheist, he says having prayer as part of House business seems unnecessary, but if you’re going to do it, “there are ways of doing it that donâ€™t turn the Indiana Statehouse into a baptist revival meeting complete with singing and praisinâ€™ Jeebus.”

Dogwood files has three. #1 argues that a literal reading of the First Amendment would not support a conclusion that prayer constitutes establishment of religion. #2 argues that the language of the First Amendment indicates an application to Congress, not to the State of Indiana. #3 opines that the ruling constitutes a loss to the First Amendment because “the Speaker of the House will be forced to censor the prayers of invited clergy.”

Godless Wonder’s headline pretty much says it all: Indiana Judge Tells Lawmakers: Pray on Your Own Time; Lawmakers Now Pray for Heathen Judge’s Death.

The M. Sheldon Show calls the federal judiciary the “Anti-Christ” because of this decision.

Indiana Politico reads the decision and hopes George Will’s column that Indiana politics is the way of the future is true. As the Politico puts it, “Our courts were successful in conveying this message: Jesus is not the official sponsor of the Indiana House of Representatives.”

Zen and the Art of Obsession takes Bosma and Bible Radio to the woodshed for deliberately ignoring the distinction between government speech and private speech. Those sources keep making statements implying that the Court has somehow restricted private speech.

Keith Milby appears to be one of the folks ignoring the distinction between government and private speech when he says “This has to be a case now of the government dictating how a religious person can pray to his God.”

Advance Indiana hails Speaker Bosma’s newly attained status as a Christian Martyr. St. Brian?

Jim Pfaff wails that the “anti-liberty forces score another victory.” (The long suffering of the ever-victimized religious super-majority is truly heart rending.)

As I mentioned, the Indiana Blog Review has a round up which includes a lot of links I omitted here — they didn’t pop up on my quick technorati search, and I’m running out of time.

My support of this decision is evident. But, I respect those who make a good faith legal argument about what the First Amendment does or doesn’t require. Dogwood Files, for example, has fallen into this category, even if I disagree with the legal analysis. The folks who really get under my skin are those who misrepresent what the court decision said: Speaker Bosma and his deliberate lumping together of government and private speech, as if there is no distinction between judicial regulation of one but not the other. I’m also irritated by the all to common theme of victimization I hear from certain segments of the religious community. (A theme that Rep. Bosma exploits by failing to distinguish government speech from other sorts of speech.)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply