Does this mean they’ll finally stop calling it that?
For the first time ever, a Hindu chaplain delivered the opening prayer in the US Senate this morning. Good thing that conservative Christians in the US are so tolerant and respectful of religious freedom, and so very protective of the tradition of opening government meetings with prayers, right?
A Hindu chaplain from Nevada was shouted down before and during his prayer to open up the U.S. Senate this morning.
Whoops! Guess they’re not so tolerant or respectful after all.
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.Police officers quickly arrested them and charged them disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester told an AP reporter, “we are Christians and patriots” before police handcuffed them and led them away.
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.”
And… that’s a problem… why?
Barton says given the fact that Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public, he questions the motivation of Senate leaders. “This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world,” he observes. “You look at India, you look at Nepal — there’s persecution going in both of those countries that is gendered by the religious belief that is present there, and Hindu dominates in both of those countries.”
But not the Christians-hating-on-Hindus type of religious persecution, oh no. He’s talking about the bad kind of religious persecution. You know, the kind that doesn’t involve Christians.
And while Barton acknowledges there is not constitutional problem with a Hindu prayer in the Senate, he wonders about the political side of it. “One definitely wonders about the pragmatic side of it,” he says. “What is the message, and why is the message needed? And will it actually communicate anything other than engender with folks like me a lot of questions?”
You can hear the whole prayer (and disturbance) for yourself here. Here’s part of it:
“Let us pray. 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 our study be enlightening,” … “by devotion to selfless work we gain the supreme goal of life.”
… “May your spirits be as one,” … “Peace, peace, peace be unto all.” He added a prayer of comfort for the family of Lady Bird Johnson, the former First Lady who died Wednesday at 94.
Peace be unto all?? Scandalous!
I for one welcome my new Hindu overlords. May death come swiftly to their enemies.
Shouldn’t that level of irony be fatal?
I think it is particularly telling that Rajan Zed is a friggin chaplin. Support our troops my ass. The only troops the Christianists want to support are the white male evangelical ones – anyone else in the military be damned.
Waitaminnit- am I the only one who didn’t know there was an opening prayer for Senate meetings? I mean, I know about all the Bible-touching that goes on for swearings-in… but this seems a little much, what with the (totally theoretical at this point) separation of church and state…
Honestly, I think it’s an abomination for anyone to give any prayer in the opening of any government function. Religion has no place in government, no matter what religion it is.
I would be mad, except I’m disinclined to think much of the intelligence of anyone who’d come up with something like this:
The stupid, it burns…
That degree of stupid should be fatal, dammit. Unfortunately, people that stupid usually wind up hurting others.
I assert that the ideological rise of evangelical Xianism in this country in the last generation is, in fact, the last dying gasp of an irrelevant set of ideas that’s time is at an end.
I love that you are making a big deal out of some crazy protesters who were ARRESTED after this incident. Most people could care less about these sorts of things. Much of the world is infinitely less tolerant than we are but of course it’s important to demonize ourselves, not point out the fact that we DO have Hindu chaplains leading the Senate in prayer.
Let’s hope this guy isn’t around if they ever let a Muslim cleric give the prayer. He’d probably drop dead from a coronary.
On second thought, let’s hope he IS around.
I was going to point out how stupid this guy is with the ‘Hindus have never contributed anything to the world’, but several people beat me to it.
And really, while there shouldn’t be any official praying in the Senate at all (separation of church and state and all that), I’m glad that they’re at least broadening their horizons with this one.
I can’t parse this sentence, but I THINK he’s angry because… the prayer might make him think? That hearing a prayer might make him ask questions? That it might force him to understand what the First Amendment is really all about?
HORRORS. Heaven forbid that any of us should ever be exposed to anything that makes us think!
And I won’t even touch the “This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world” line. The sheer dripping foul ignorance of that statement is stunning.
(Particularly ironic because my sister, currently studying astronomy at Cornell, and I were just talking about the history of astronomy the other day… Christians held onto the ideas that the Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the Earth for thousands of year. Whereas Sanskrit astronomers proposed theories of a heliocentric universe, a round earth, and the force of gravity over two thousand years ago. The Vedas even describe a heliocentric universe. Western Science, you were pwned by a religious text and you didn’t even know it.)
Does anyone have contact info for the cleric? I am so ashamed and embarassed, I feel like writing the guy an apology from all the non-wacko Americans.
Don’t you have to get passes to sit in the Gallery? If so, I wonder who gave them and did they know who they were? Anyone ever been?
Yeah, nobody pays any attention to protesters!
I first learned about the prayer tradition when I was a devoted watcher of C-Span, one the few things I miss about not paying for cable tv.
When I’m feeling optimistic, I agree with Thomas that the rise of the evangelicals is a sign of the coming eclipse of the domination of christianity with educated critical thought.
Unfortunately, my regular contact with average working Americans forces me to realize that there’s a world of hurting yet to come in this country before there’s any rise to enlightenment.
I say we just get rid of the prayers all together. If they want prayer they can do so privately before hand.
Particularly ironic because my sister, currently studying astronomy at Cornell, and I were just talking about the history of astronomy the other day… Christians held onto the ideas that the Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the Earth for thousands of year. Whereas Sanskrit astronomers proposed theories of a heliocentric universe, a round earth, and the force of gravity over two thousand years ago. The Vedas even describe a heliocentric universe. Western Science, you were pwned by a religious text and you didn’t even know it.)
In the early history of the Church, a few Christians believed in the flat Earth, but they were pretty much in the minority. The majority opinion was in favour of a spherical Earth. This was largely thanks to the Greeks, who discovered the Earth was spherical at about the same time as the Indians did.
It took until Copernicus and Newton before the West caught onto heliocentrism and gravity, though…
Eh, all us brown folk are the same to these people. And Islam hasn’t contributed anything to the world either, you know. Especially not to Astronomy. Or Math.
Ignorant savages, those brown people!
Apparently a Muslim did lead the prayer sometime back in the early 90s. I wonder if that would fly today…
The tradition of opening Congress’s proceedings with a prayer from the chaplains goes back to 1789, so apparently tradition trumps our modern-day ideas about the separation of church and state. Unlike schoolkids, the congressmen and senators are too old for these prayers to indoctrinate them. I like their recognition that society is more pluralistic than in 1789, and I hope to see a Buddhist monk spinning his prayer wheels in front of the Senate before long.
Man, I don’t know how crazy you’d have to be so that you can’t even stand to HEAR the prayer of another religion. You don’t agree, fine. But your world won’t end just because someone practiced their faith in the same room as you.
I mean, what do these people do when they see someone wearing the Star of David or pass a Buddist temple? Hiss and writhe like a vamprie confronted with a cross?
Poor Zed. He really didn’t deserve that. Although I agree that prayers shouldn’t be done at all in any government. I got incredibly pissed when I learned we still say ‘God Save the Queen’ in court.
I would wager that a majority of dominionists/evangelicals/fundies haven’t actually read the bible, or debated its contents. They get fed a serving and say “yes, yes. that’s it.” and just run with it from there.
I imagine being faced with questions must be awfully scary. =p
and for all the previous commenters on “teh stoopid”: man. you can see that stupid from space.
[...] r The BBC provides some basic info on the Hindu faith Feministe is, as usual, brilliant in its analysis of the situation (the comments are pretty [...]
Ooooooo, next year, maybe they’ll get a Witch to lead the prayer!
Can you imagine the reaction to calling the quarters? tee-hee
I would so love that, you could keep a non christian holy symbol on you in case you get accosted by evangelical whack jobs!
I’ll come right out and say it: I believe the protesters were at least partially right. Opening a session of the Senate with a Hindu prayer is an abomination, and offense to all this great nation stands for, and the people who organized this disgusting display should lose their jobs. Why? Because opening a session of the Senate with a prayer of any faith is an abomination and a waste of time.
Although it could be worse, they could be passing new laws…
No, the protesters were not ‘partially right’, because they were not protesting the idea of the Senate opening with a prayer. They believed the Senate *should* open with a prayer, just a Christian prayer.
Hector’s total misunderstanding of Establishment Clause law aside, SCOTUS’s take on the Senate is that they’re the Senate and there’s no government coercion involved because they can stop if they want to. Never underestimate the stupidity of SCOTUS when the issue at hand is drugs or largely ceremonial Christianity.
Maybe I’ve been asleep for a very long time, but was this country ever a Christian nation?
Seriously! And they say that atheists are supposed to be the immoral, disrespectful, uncontrollable ones. I may not bow my head and join in, but I’ve certainly never interrupted a public prayer. What a bunch of wackos.
[...] has driven some Christian nuts into a whirling, frothing frenzy. Trailer Park Feminist at Feministe reports a One News Now poll reflecting the insanity, in whic [...]
The Supreme Court under Burger ruled on this, claiming that opening a legislative session with a non-denominational prayer is not a violation of the principle of separation of church and state.
I’m having flashbacks to the episode when a Wiccan offered the opening prayer for a session of the Dallas City Council in 2000.
Well, the majority of americans are protestant…which means that the protesters are WRONG. According to the Pope, they’re not actually christians at all, as of yesterday.
ROFL. I say confusion to the enemy, and their Sith Lord Benedict.
Nenena — I’M also currently studying astronomy at Cornell! What a small world . . .
And “This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world” is the most shockingly sad and openly, proudly offensive thing I’ve read in quite a while.
If they are going to open with a prayer service, they should alternate religions on a regular basis.
The REALLY sad thing is that the prayer was beautifully crafted so that his words were not directed at any particular God at all.
Allowing that the reference to “the Lord” excludes anyone from a religion with no male deity unless a goddess can be Lord (and if She wants to, I ain’t going to say no), there is no reason whatsoever that the prayer could be construed as NOT being to the Christian God.
Now, I know that the protesters didn’t for a second bother to actually listen to the prayer – being too busy being apalled and all, so it’s a bit of a moot point. But it turns out that functionally, their objection was that a non-Christian was allowed to pray publicly. And that fact that they objected before he got his prayer out just proves that they don’t care who he was praying to.
As with so many of the things that these people protest, it isn’t his behavior that they were protesting – it is his existence. And that sort of protest cannot be tolerated.
I’d love it if this kind of protest forced public prayer out of the legislature entirely. “Well, you folks just ruined it for everybody.”
As I read the decision and the dissent, while the prayer does not violate the Establishment Clause, it does indeed violate the principle of separation of church and state. But because the founders who drafted the Establishment Clause saw no problem paying chaplains to deliver opening prayers, why should the Burger Court?
I am not sure why the principle of separation of church and state is held in such high esteem, anyways. Are we any less free than the Brits or Canadians? I’m a bit biased because the K-13 Catholic schools my mother attended were supported by property taxes. Perhaps their state-sponsored religion helps keep the violent crime rate down, and created the political climate that supports universal health care.
On a lighter note, I’m heartened to hear Benny finally cracking down on the Prods. Enjoy Hell, you heretics. But remember, the One True Church — founded by Christ himself rather than some randy Brit or scrofulous Kraut — is always available for you to join.
AHAHAHA, that would be BRILLIANT. Man, that would kill them.
I really don’t understand why the protesters use the phrase “allowing this abomination in [God's] sight.” Putting aside my current agnosticism for the moment, when I was growing up we were taught that God sees and knows everything that happens in the world – more than that, he know our souls and our thoughts, things that no one but God may ever hear. So why is the Senate in the “sight” of God but the meetings of the Indian Society somehow aren’t?
Forget pantheistic prayer in the public sphere – when did monotheism become so narrow? Do these people really believe in God as Aristocrat – someone who only shows up for Very Important Functions and has to have everything Just Right or He will be offended and might not want to stay for dinner? That doesn’t sound like universal monotheism to me.
Actually, it kind of sounds like tribal monolatrism.