UPDATED: There’s a Term for These Folks - They Are Stupid Jerks
July 12th, 2007 by HOLLY IN CINCINNATI
Some people thought they could promote Christianity by disrupting the Senate’s invocation this morning. Sen. Harry Reid had invited a Hindu chaplain from his home state of Nevada to give today’s prayer and these interlopers just didn’t think that was appropriate.
I doubt that these Christians attracted the unchurched to Christianity today.
Shakesville: Your Daily Dose of Christian Tolerance
UPDATE: Coverage from the Times of India: Christian activists disrupt Hindu prayer in US Senate
WASHINGTON: Christian activists briefly disrupted a Hindu invocation in the US Senate on Thursday, marring a historic first for the chamber and showing that fundamentalism is present and shouting in the US too.
Invited by the Senate to offer Hindu prayers in place of the usual Christian invocation, Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest from Reno, Nevada, had just stepped up to the podium for the landmark occasion when three protesters, said to belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, interrupted by loudly asking for God’s forgiveness for allowing the ”false prayer” of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.
“Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight,” the first protester shouted. “This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before you.”
Democratic Senator Bob Casey, who was serving as the presiding officer for the morning, immediately asked the sergeant-at-arms to restore order. But they continued to protest as they were headed out the door by the marshals, shouting, “No Lord but Jesus Christ!” and “There’s only one true God!”
Zed, clad in saffron with a prominent tilak on his forehead, then nervously went through the invocation.
“Let us pray,” he 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 heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.
“Lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigour. May our study be enlightening.”
The sentiments were evidently lost on the fundamentalists.
The organisation Operation Save America later issued a press release confirming that Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate “as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god.”
“The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ,” the statement said, adding, “This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.”
Typically, the Senate Chaplain delivers the opening invocation, but sometimes guest chaplains are invited from all over the country to read the prayer.
According to a Senate Chaplain Office communiqué, the purpose of the opening prayer is to seek God on behalf of, and for the Senators and the prayer should affirm our rich heritage as a Nation “under God.”
According to US Senate website, “…Throughout the years, the United States Senate has honoured the historic separation of Church and State, but not the separation of God and State…During the past two hundred and seven years, all sessions of the Senate have been opened with prayer, strongly affirming the Senate’s faith in God as Sovereign Lord of our Nation…”
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Christian Conservatives, Harry Reid, Senate, Religion, Politics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
July 12th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Official stamp by the government on paganism??
Paganism?
And some of the comments on the post by the American Family News Network..
Wishful thinking on that dudes part if you ask me.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I’m just curious, since I’m reading on a lot of blogs questions as to why there even is a prayer in the Senate. Is this something that goes all the way back to the beginning of this nation, or is it like the ‘under God’ insert in the pledge, an addition to our tradition to differentiate ourselves from the godless communists?
July 12th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Stupid. embarrassing. a warning sign.
If there needs to be prayer, it should be silent.
July 12th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Ashen - it goes back to the founding and the Continental Congresses.
Man, today just goes to show that there are some people that just give religion a bad name.
July 12th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Yikes! Bugs Buny said it best, “What a bunch of maroons.”
These folks were employing their Constitutional right to make complete and utter asses of themselves.
What will they do now they have succeeded?
July 12th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
What sad, small, frightened things these creatures are. For the life of me, I don’t understand how they could have been born and raised (assumption) in the same nation as me, take the same civics classes, history classes, and yet as adults view the world around them with such blind contempt and fear.
July 12th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Where to begin? I guess it’s too much to hope to expect government at the present time to recognize that calling God “Sovereign Lord of our Nation” is in itself an endorsement of religion and prohibited in the constitution.
Here’s a novel idea, bring a biologist to the floor, say Richard Dawkins himself, and have him read the scientific method aloud. There are sure a hell of a lot more atheists in the US than Hindus, and it’s our country too, dammit. Bonus would be getting our senators to hear the scientific method, something some of them sorely need.
July 12th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Didn’t these childish idiots ever learn to play fair. Sometimes you share your “toys” with the other kids in the neighborhood. I recall an article about Christians in Hawaii being a minority with other religions - can’t these BibleThumpers play nice.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Good think we don’t have those “religious fundementalists” that can spur sectarian violence in our country…. Oh wait, never mind.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I’d love to get Bill’o’s take on it, LOL. The perpetrators must have been regular viewers of the “No Spin Zone.”
July 12th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
The first amendment was hard at work today folks. I’m raising a toast to it tonight when I get off work. Today in the most important chambers of the United States different religons met and said what they wanted to say in front of the most powerful people in the land and no one died.
July 12th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
“and no one died.”
Is that our bottom line criterion now?
Sorry, I was hoping for a higher marker for this country.
July 13th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Sam - Every day that the Republican party gives Tony Perkins a forum and power our freedoms die. Did you read his BS at FRC?
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PW07G02
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=LH07G02&f=WX06L01
So much for a religion of inclusion, did Tony ever hear about the “eye of the needle”?
July 13th, 2007 at 10:17 am
“Is that our bottom line criterion now?
Sorry, I was hoping for a higher marker for this country.”
Well actually if you think its so easy for that to happen I suggest you take a look around the world. The fact is throughout history and in much of today what happened in the House is an exceptional event. The fact we merely expect it to be so says a lot about the success of our laws and way of doing things.
July 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Even that is attacked by the idiots in this country.
July 13th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
They’re the tiny minority that discredits itself and is used routinely by dishonest religious bigots in the USA — who demonize anything about religion and the so-called Religious Right. In fact it’s no different than those who thought the Civil War was God’s wrath on this country for straying from the good and true, and who proposed the constitutional amendment that I find amusing to this day — which would change the Preamble, which is not law (it’s a familiar refuge of losers who have nowhere in the body of the Constitution they can claim justifies a given thing the federal government does), but which would make those religious activists happy then, and which makes fools nowadays aghast (grow up, please — even if it were sought today it would hardly be a crisis, just something to be resisted or accepted as seen fit):
and regarding Congressional debate on this issue:
.
A small minority overreacted this time, that’s all. Calm down, grow up. The last time they did this was probably when Hillary Clinton had some New Age or “indigenous” [sic] faith healer perform a rite of some sort at the White House. B F D
July 13th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Holly, don’t the orthodox in Israel sometimes throw rocks at those who aren’t sufficiently pious on the Sabbath there? Is that how all orthodox are?
July 14th, 2007 at 12:20 am
As a matter of fact, the role of Christianity was the hot button issue of the day during the writing of the Constitution.
IWhile Christianity was the predominant religion, even all the way back then the more enlightened realized the dangers of identifying one religion or belief with government.
I think it is to the detriment of our nation that the principle of exclusion (we have the right belieds and you don’t) is still upheld. .
Out of respect for believers, a few moments of silence to pray or meditate or count the panes in a window would accomodate everyone and excluse no one.
July 14th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Sam-
I don’t get much joy from the fact that we’re not as bad as the worst examples in other parts of the world or oyher periods of history.
A grade of C is passing. Rather than stop there, we can achieve more and rise higher by striving for a B or an A.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Intolerant Leader and Followers
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