Question #126: National Day Of Wasted Breath
Dear Little Bald Bastard,
How are you going to celebrate the national day of Prayer?
- Belief/relief
Dear Belief/relief,
In the classic Christian tradition of co-opting other people's holidays (and crotch-punching the First Amendment's Establishment Clause), U.S. evangelicals have managed to shove poor, neglected May Day 2008 aside in favor of a federally sponsored day for people of faith to beseech their favorite deity. This putatively ecumenical event has been entirely hijacked by evangelical Christians, led by Focus on The Family's Shirley Dobson. Dobson heads the National Day of Prayer Task Force, and requires all of her coordinators to sign a statement explicitly stating belief that Jesus was both a ghost AND a zombie.
I'm going to spend my day like I spend any other. I'll be angry that the rights of those who opt out of the supernatural aren't as important as those of believers. I'll be appalled at how tolerance of diverse faiths doesn't apply to people who place their faith in the natural rather than the fantastic. I'll be aghast at this country's sad, greasy slide toward outright theocracy. Most of all, I'll wish I was surprised by any of it.
2 comments:
As Devil's Advocate I must bring up the point that the country was founded by a bunch of Protestants that had issue with the Church of England, not church itself.
And then I must mention that by being "Devil's Advocate", I'm adopting the other side of a belief in the fantastic, not escaping it entirely.
True, but one of their issues with the Church of England was that it was a state church. Hence Article VI, section 3; “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
And of course, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which Jefferson himself first described as a wall between church and state.
To be clear, I don't care if people want to have a day where everybody prays. It's the participation of the government that gets my panties in a bunch.
Thanks for the comment. Although I think, if you're anyone's advocate, it's not the devil's. =)
Post a Comment