Sunday, January 23, 2011

Hawaii Realizes They are about Governing and not Prayer

Hawaii Senate ends daily chamber prayers

I am always leery of politicians anyway, but when politicians start talking about matters of faith, I start sweating. It is never good when politicians start playing on people's emotions. The end result is manipulation of the faithful and an endangerment to the liberties of all.

Hawaii has done something that has totally amazed me - the right thing.

In the summer of 2010, a citizen of Hawaii complained about the legislature there opening its sessions with overt prayer, prayers that often directly mentioned Jesus.

Now understand that I am all for prayer. I pray. I like people to pray. I think God likes prayer. But when politicians want to make prayer into a political football, someone needs to throw the Challenge Flag.

One citizen complained. Thank God for that one citizen. No, that is not a play on words because somehow I don't think God is too happy with his Faithful and his Name being used as a means to garner votes for Corruptible Caesar.

So this one, lone, brave citizen complained to the only group with the intestinal fortitude to take on such a challenge: the ACLU. With the gauntlet being cast, the ACLU wrote a letter to Hawaii's state senate about the political prayer play. That's when Hawaii's attorney general agreed with the ACLU and I'm sure all hell is going to break loose in the other 49 states when they learn that one state is actually following the Constitution and keep the separation of church and state.

Of course the Alliance Defense Fund wants to argue that since the Hawaii Senate has always prayed, they should keep doing it. Yes. By all means let's keep doing what we've always done and just ignore the Constitution.

I don't know who that one person in Hawaii is, but she deserves a pat on the back. Thank you. Thank you for speaking up and making sure that even my faith is not given preferential treatment. If government can acknowledge my faith today, it can give that same nod to another religion tomorrow. We elect our leaders to govern the secular, not act as agents of God. We elect politicians, not pastors. We expect them to govern all people, not marginalize minority faiths.

Again, thank you, whomever you are.

And to the other 49 states, you need to listen up.

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Great Quote List

"The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. ... Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians."
--- John Leland, Colonial Virginia Baptist, "A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia," as cited in Forrest Church, The Separation of Church and State, 92 (2004).

"Religious matters are to be separated from the jurisdiction of the state, not because they are beneath the interests of the state but, quite to the contrary, because they are too high and holy and thus are beyond the competence of the state."
--- Isaac Backus, New England Colonial Baptist, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773.

" 'The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism. Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism.' [Adlai] Stevenson also remarked, 'It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.' "
--- Adlai Stevenson as quoted by TV lawyer Alan Shore on Boston Legal in the courtroom scene "Stick It."

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. . . Our government. . . teaches the whole people by its example. . . If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
--- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States in the dissenting opinion, later vindicated in Katz v. United States.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a bible."
--- Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1935. (Common spurious attribution, but an oh-so-true statement.)

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.”
--- St Augustine.

"To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death."
---Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, 1963.

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
--- George Carlin (1937-2008) .

"Honesty is not something you flirt with — you should be married to it."
--- Table Top at Joe's Crab House, Aurora, CO.

"It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't."

--- Martin Van Buren.

"The Religious Right is a reminder as to why we have the 1st Amendment --- people can't resist forcing their religious interpretations onto others if others won't willingly acquiesce."
--- TBAR, 07/04/08.

"I'd rather have an honest Atheist in power than a corrupt Christian."
--- Ed Edwards, 09/01/08

“Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse, or loss of property, for his religious opinions....”
--- John Leland, Colonial Virginia Baptist minister and religious liberty advocate, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable, 1791 pamphlet.