Posted on 02/04/2005 3:20:33 PM PST by Prospero
RALEIGH -- A key state senator ordered Bibles, hymnals and a cross removed from the Legislative Building's nondenominational chapel but was overruled Thursday when his decision threatened a cultural and political spat.
State Sen. Tony Rand last week had staffers box up the religious material because other legislators complained that the chapel's Christian emphasis was inappropriate in a public building used by people of different faiths.
Rand is chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and shares oversight of the building with his House counterpart.
Senate leader Marc Basnight, also a Democrat, reversed Rand's order after complaints from Republican lawmakers and inquiries from a reporter.
"The cross and the Bible are going back in the chapel," Norma Mills, Basnight's chief of staff, said Thursday night. "Senator Basnight felt those were appropriate items."
The chapel, in the Legislative Building's rotunda, is a small, mostly unadorned room near the House and Senate chambers. Lawmakers and others occasionally use it for prayer or reflection.
At one time, it had a brass cross and a Star of David. Both disappeared several years ago.
In recent years, a group of lawmakers began holding weekly services there. They brought in privately donated Bibles, hymnals, and a cross and left them.
Rand said he received complaints from lawmakers, whom he declined to identify, who felt uncomfortable using the chapel surrounded by so many Christian symbols. He noted that there are lawmakers who are Christian, Jewish and Muslim.
So legislative staff removed the religious material last Friday, except for a large Bible that has long been in the chapel.
Rand said worshippers could hold Christian services in the chapel, but they would have to bring their own religious material and take it away.
"If they want to bring it to their services, they're welcome to do that," Rand said. "It should retain its nondenominational character. It's not a church. It's a public place for whoever wants to communicate with one's maker."
Several lawmakers contacted Thursday said they were unaware of the controversy. But the move angered lawmakers who had been using the items in noontime Christian devotionals each Wednesday.
State Sen. Neal Hunt, a Raleigh Republican who is leading the services this session, called Rand's decision "an error, a bad mistake."
Added state Sen. Robert Pittenger of Charlotte, "It's a sad testament to the secularization of our country and the denial of the living God."
Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., said Rand was probably correct in excluding the permanent display of religious material. He said a court probably would uphold the use of a chapel in a public building for religious services, but he said it is probably not a good idea to keep Christian symbols on permanent display there.
"Not only is it probably the sensitive thing to do to keep the chapel available to all, but it may also be the First Amendment thing to do," Haynes said.
"To have it displayed does send a message that this is a particular place for a particular religion. I think [Rand] is giving good advice, although it is not a popular thing to say in North Carolina."
Haynes said a reasonable accommodation would be to keep religious symbols in some sort of drawer or cabinet in or near the chapel for easy use.
Basnight, in fact, has asked that the Bibles, hymnals and cross be stored on a shelf in the chapel.
Staff writer Rob Christensen can be reached at 829-4532 or robc@newsobserver.com.
See www.ncsenategop.com for some entertaining updates.
Democrats correctly recognize their enemies: religion, spiritual people, morality, ethics, and the Living God.
Sounds like good fodder for future campaigns.
I still don't believe it, but, as it turns out, Sen. Larry Shaw of Fayetteville is rumored to be a Muslim. But, you can be sure he wouldn't have been stupid enough to pull a arrogant bonehead stunt like this.
Then there's this, today...
Heard on the Streets: Tom Campbell, NCSPIN
"Your reporters have learned that the Grand Jury has been hearing testimony on “pay for access” to high levels of leadership in the legislature and at least one key lobbyist has been called to testify. We are told this doesn’t apply to the Frank Ballance case but is a new investigation and that indictments may be forthcoming soon.
The Grand Jury has been extremely busy over the past several years. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and tell you what we are hearing."
Well, I meant to say "Nation of Islam," but Nation of Islam and Islam, strictly speaking seem to be redundant, sense Islam and Nation, as in Islam and being The Nation, as in all the world dominated by the Muslim worldview, are one and the same.
This might account for a lot of Senator Shaw's behavior, both his iwlligness to break from the Dem Leadership, and his willingness to walk in lock step with his natural allies.
Well.. they own him... and we need to wrap him around their necks, being such a popular and tolerant religion and all
/sarcasm
I meant that the word "Islam" loosely translated means "The Nation of Believers," and, in the language of the Religion, refers less to the religion, as we use the word in the West, but to "Islam," meaning the whole of the "Muslim world."
Silly, then, to call themselves an American "Nation of Islam" when Islam and Nation are, in the lexicon of Muslims, one and the same. Silly, also, since because literally since almost the very beginning of Islam (the nation, and it's 'universal' religion) came the Caliphates, endless tribal war, and the sea of classic western-stylized nation-states as varied and as jealous of their territory as Indonesia and Morocco.
But, back to the original topic, I'm still surprise that Larry Shaw can survive, in his Voting Rights Act district, as a member of the peculiar Muslim Brotherhood, in a district with slightly more than 40 percent African Americans of Voting Age. You have to wonder if the African American Christians are largely aware of his beliefs.
By the way. One, and only one precinct change, and Tony Rand and Shaw would be in the same district, and well within the legal parameters of the Stephenson redistricting criteria, and federal requirements.
Capitalism without a moral base is sheer thuggery. And pretenses to "religious sensitivity" without the Bible are in kind: Thuggery by another means.
No argument from me. And, no Christianity, no western science. It took more than the Socratic method to devote one's lifetime to the pursuit of Truth, if Truth, though not understood exhaustively, wasn't believed to exist.
No Christianity, no American Republic...
I'm frankly tired of the Religion of Non-Religion being treated as something other than what it is... a Religion.
I'm frankly tired of the Religion of Non-Religion being treated as something other than what it is... a Religion.
I perfected my poker face years ago when listening to agnostics and atheists go on and on about how they "do not believe" and while they went chapter and verse upon their "beliefs". And in the late 60s and 70s, hearing all sorts of luminaries talk about their belief in "self". I kept track, and watched each of them mess up their own lives tremendously, some through drugs, some through suicide.
In America, religions have their freedoms to exist (given they don't kill or harm others, infringing upon others' rights); But Christianity is what makes this so.
Christianity is the table upon which sits the freedom to have a buffet meal of religions. And some clueless legislator is whining that it isn't "tolerant" to have Christianity anywhere near the table of public life? Who's the idiot oppressor here? lol. Good thing a fellow Democrat stopped this clueless Democrat from committing political suicide.
In re science and math. I've observed that as ACADEMIA attempts to ban Christianity from "public sites" there seems to be quite a connective relationship to the decline of sciences and math at those institutes.
And since at the larger levels of government, it is almost always Democrats attempting (through the chimera of "tolerance) to ban Christianity, I think it has addled their minds, which is of course why they can't seem to add or think on their feet: They've become bereft of logos. And math and science... and elections.
Don't throw out the bibles. Just toss in a Menorah and Torah scroll for the Jews, a rosary for the catholics and a couple hand grenades for the religion of peace.
My captilization stinks....... Should be Bibles. .... menorah and torah.
INTREP - Survive
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