Posted on 04/03/2003 6:25:58 PM PST by honway
A Maryland minister was barred from giving the opening prayer in the state Senate after he refused to drop a reference to Jesus.
The Rev. David N. Hughes of the Trinity and Evangelical Church of Adamstown, Md., intended to round out his invocation yesterday with the line, "In Jesus' name, Amen." But the sergeant at arms – on the orders of Senate President Thomas Mike Miller Jr. – shut the reverend out of the body's chambers.
Miller issued the orders after two Jewish lawmakers threatened to stage a boycott of the legislative session if the phrase was not removed.
"I'm shocked by the response. I've never had this happen in 26 years," Hughes told the Frederick News-Post. "It just makes me feel that they've taken away my right as an American to pray, and this is the seat of government, and that's scary."
The pastor – a Vietnam veteran – was invited to give the prayer by Republican Sen. Alex Mooney. Hughes was Mooney's fourth guest. The other three were Jewish rabbis.
Opening up legislative sessions with prayer is a longstanding tradition in Maryland, as it is in states across the country. Mooney told WorldNetDaily no one had been barred from giving an invocation before. He sees irony in yesterday's "censorship."
Maryland state Republican Rep. Alex Mooney
"We were the first state to address religious tolerance in our state charter," he told WorldNetDaily. "This just shows a lack of tolerance for peoples' religious views."
Mooney recalled numerous instances of invocations referencing Jesus throughout the four years that he has been in office.
But at the beginning of the session this year, a string of invocations by Baptist preachers invoking the name Jesus Christ sparked debate on the issue. Miller appealed to lawmakers for tolerance and urged they stick to guidelines that call for invocations to be of an ecumenical nature and respectful of all faiths.
Webster's New World Dictionary defines ecumenical as "promoting cooperation or better understanding among differing religious faiths."
Since the debate, the Senate clerk screens prayers ahead of time and flagged the written text submitted by Hughes.
When Sens. Ida Ruben and Gloria Hollinger – both of whom are Jewish – heard of the reference, they asked Mooney to strike it.
"I said, 'Hey, I'll let him pray however he wants to pray. I'm not going to censor him and tell him how he needs to pray,'" Mooney told WND.
Ruben told the Frederick News-Post she then urged Hughes to substitute "messiah" for Jesus, telling him the reference could offend non-Christians and goes against the guidelines.
Neither Ruben nor Miller returned calls seeking comment.
"This is part of my faith," Hughes responded, according to Mooney. "The Gospel says when you pray, pray in Jesus' name."
The senators next asked to be excused from the floor during the prayer.
Paradoxically, a walk-out over a Muslim cleric's prayer opening a Washington state legislative session last month backfired on one Christian lawmaker.
Washington state Republican Rep. Lois McMahan
As WorldNetDaily reported, Rep. Lois McMahan, a Republican from Gig Harbor, Wash., refused to participate in the prayer and declared, "My god is not Muhammed."
"The Islamic religion is so ... part and parcel with the attack on America. I just didn't want to be there, be a part of that," she said in an interview with the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "Even though the mainstream Islamic religion doesn't profess to hate America, nonetheless it spawns the groups that hate America."
But a day later, McMahan apologized on the floor of the state House of Representatives amid mounting furor over her stance.
Debate over invocations is raging elsewhere in the country. As WorldNetDaily reported, several Southern California cities are grappling with threats from both sides of the issue.
Under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union to quit using the name Jesus Christ in invocations, the city of Lake Elsinore, in Riverside County, decided to eliminate mention of "religious figures." The decree subsequently had the apparent effect of eliminating the prayer altogether, as no local pastors would accept invitations to deliver the prayer, and city councilors adopted moments of silence instead.
The ACLU contends that praying at the request of a government entity is a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition against the establishment of religion.
But the nonprofit United States Justice Foundation, which threatened to sue the city if it failed to reverse its decision, maintains telling a pastor what to pray is a violation of his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion.
The notion of "separation of church and state" is derived from the dissenting opinion of the 1946 Supreme Court case Everson vs. Board of Education, which upheld a program allowing parents to be repaid from state funds for the costs of transportation to private religious schools. The court required only that the state maintain neutrality in its relations with various groups of religious believers.
"The decision in Everson does not rise to the level of being a battle cry for those who would wish to remove every vestige of religion from the public forum," USJF litigation counsel Richard Ackerman asserts.
"There's a push in this country to remove religion from society," Mooney echoed, "from the Supreme Court's decision on the Pledge to the ACLU going after all the Ten Commandments posted across the country. ... Nothing in the church-state relationship allows censorship and the removal of religious values from society."
"You see, it is this faith business that confounded everyone. We have had such actors and liars in public office that we have looked skeptically whenever anyone used the term faith.
But this was the same man who was the first politician ever in recent memory to name Jesus Christ as the lord of his life on public TV. Not an oblique reference to being "born-again" or having a "life change." He said the un-PC-like phrase, "Jesus Christ," to which his handlers and advisors, no doubt, off stage, were concerned"
Based on what you have written on this thread,it would not surprise me if you were unable to vote for a man that names Jesus Christ as lord of his life on public TV.
Go interrogate your mom. I am not your mother for you to demand anything from me.
Is Israel a Jewish nation?Christians and Muslims are citizens of Israel.
Is it racist to say Israel is a Jewish nation?
Not at all. Although it did heppen to my father and grandfater. The weapon was more lethal than the baseball bat.
By your point of view, we ought never have any public leading of prayer at all. I have repeatedly stated the opposite.
After all, any prayer at all is disrespectful of non-believers.
Also false: I did not argue for the unity without limits. The issue at hand is whether we can have an interdenominational prayer.
Now, which other parts of what I said did you get as they were written?
The word Jews needs to be put between quotation marks and modified to read, "Jewish Politicians". Seems to me like they have too much time on their hands.
I agree. But I doubt this minister would have tolerated a prayer not to his liking.
There is an agenda at work here, and it is not the agenda of George Bush or conservative Americans.
Let Gore Vidal rot in his villa in Tuscany and in h-ll afterwards.
I think then that you should find the kindness in your heart to allow this Pastor, who obviously is from a denomination that MAY NOT pray without invoking Jesus' name the tolerance to do so without getting upset.
All of us G-d fearing people are under attack, we're gonna need everybody to stick together.
'Pledge' Mom: My Daughter Is No Atheist
COSBY: And just one quick question before we go to the break, Sandy — there's some interesting stuff that has never been reported before, about Michael Newdow's background, his religious background. Tell me about his family — because his family, they're not atheists, right?
BANNING: It's my understanding that his parents are atheists but he — he was raised — a Jewish background, Glen [their daughter] and he celebrate Hannukah and Passover together.
COSBY: So he and your daughter celebrate Passover?
BANNING: Correct.
COSBY: And he doesn't oppose that?
BANNING: No, he doesn't. And she celebrates the traditional Jewish holidays with him.
COSBY: So how can he reconcile that — if he can say it's okay to celebrate Passover, but then saying your daughter can't say "under God?"
BANNING: Well, I'm not really sure how he reconciles that. I — you know, there's lots of folks that you know, participate in Christmas but that doesn't make them a Christian, that doesn't exclude the children from participating in a very you know ... it's actually a very religious holiday, but maybe it's not religious in their home.
COSBY: Do you feel he's being somewhat contradictory though, and some would say that?
BANNING: Possibly. But I think that it's important that my daughter learn about her family heritage and she needs to know about her family history, it's very important.
COSBY: Sandy Banning, please stay with us, we're just going to take a short break and we'll have more with you after this commercial break. An incredible story, told for the first time, this is the mother of the little girl at the center of the storm — her father just recently won that case making the Pledge of the Allegiance unconstitutional. We'll have her first-ever exclusive interview and continue with her right after this break
As I said earlier, I would be delighted to see this nation to return to its Christian roots, starting with prayer in school. I assure you, I do not have even a bit of a problem with the minister's prayer (most of my participation on this board was raising questions with those whose views seemed to be rather extreme).
Regards, TQ.
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