Open for Discussion... Anybody in the Tupelo know this group
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 1:04 pm
On the morning of July 12, 2007, a clergyman was delivering the opening prayer for the United States Senate when he was interrupted by three loud protesters in the Senate visitors gallery who were shouting "Lord Jesus, protect us from this abomination," and other complaints to protest the prayer being delivered. According to an Associated Press reporter on the scene one of the protesters told him just before being handcuffed and hauled away by police, "We are Christians and patriots." It is also reported that due to the extraordinary level of disruption inflicted upon the Senate by these protestors it was necessary for the president pro-tem of the Senate to repeatedly beat the gavel in an effort to restore order and that eventually the prayer had to be halted while the Sergeant of Arms restored order in the Senate chamber.
The three protestors, identified as Ante Nediko Pavkovic, Katherine Lynn Pavkovic and Christan Renee Sugar by Capitol Hill police, were arrested on for disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. They all refused to provide their hometown, ages and affiliations.
If you've not already heard about this story you might be wondering why these three Christians chose to disrupt the Senate opening prayer like that. It appears they were protesting the fact that for the first time in US history the Senate opening prayer was being delivered by a Hindu. Ever since it became known that a Hindu clergyman had been invited to deliver the opening prayer the American Family Association [AFA], headed by Donald Wildmon and based in Tupelo, Mississippi, has been sending out "action alerts" to its members and exhorting both its members and other Christian fundamentalists to protest this historic event by sending e-mails to their Senators expressing disappointment in the decision to invite a Hindu to deliver the Senate's opening prayer.
The AFA's "action alerts" are quoted as saying that "since Hindus worship multiple gods, the prayer will be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto, 'One Nation Under God,'" and "In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods. And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, the Declaration (of Independence) when they talked about Creator -- that's not one that fits here because we don't know which creator we're talking about within the Hindu religion."
It seems that the American Family Association considers the roughly 2 million Hindus living in the US to be second class citizens whose religious beliefs should not be expressed in public, and that only the prayers of Christians and selected other monotheists (Jews, perhaps; Muslims, perhaps not) should be allowed on the floor of the United States Senate.
In this forum it is not uncommon to see members who are Christians whining about how their religious beliefs are so oppressed and how their rights are being trampled, but here we have a clear example of religious intolerance and it's Christians who are the clear perpetrators of that intolerance and not the victims at all. They claim that others have been working to push free religious expression out of the public square, but who was pushing to remove free religious expression from the public square on the morning of July 12 in the US Senate? Christians were. These people are hypocrites and religious bigots. When has a Hindu ever disrupted a Christian opening prayer in the Senate?
Here are some links to some detailed news reports of this story as well as some thoughtful commentary. Some of them include extensive background far beyond anything I have provided here.
The three protestors, identified as Ante Nediko Pavkovic, Katherine Lynn Pavkovic and Christan Renee Sugar by Capitol Hill police, were arrested on for disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. They all refused to provide their hometown, ages and affiliations.
If you've not already heard about this story you might be wondering why these three Christians chose to disrupt the Senate opening prayer like that. It appears they were protesting the fact that for the first time in US history the Senate opening prayer was being delivered by a Hindu. Ever since it became known that a Hindu clergyman had been invited to deliver the opening prayer the American Family Association [AFA], headed by Donald Wildmon and based in Tupelo, Mississippi, has been sending out "action alerts" to its members and exhorting both its members and other Christian fundamentalists to protest this historic event by sending e-mails to their Senators expressing disappointment in the decision to invite a Hindu to deliver the Senate's opening prayer.
The AFA's "action alerts" are quoted as saying that "since Hindus worship multiple gods, the prayer will be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto, 'One Nation Under God,'" and "In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods. And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, the Declaration (of Independence) when they talked about Creator -- that's not one that fits here because we don't know which creator we're talking about within the Hindu religion."
It seems that the American Family Association considers the roughly 2 million Hindus living in the US to be second class citizens whose religious beliefs should not be expressed in public, and that only the prayers of Christians and selected other monotheists (Jews, perhaps; Muslims, perhaps not) should be allowed on the floor of the United States Senate.
In this forum it is not uncommon to see members who are Christians whining about how their religious beliefs are so oppressed and how their rights are being trampled, but here we have a clear example of religious intolerance and it's Christians who are the clear perpetrators of that intolerance and not the victims at all. They claim that others have been working to push free religious expression out of the public square, but who was pushing to remove free religious expression from the public square on the morning of July 12 in the US Senate? Christians were. These people are hypocrites and religious bigots. When has a Hindu ever disrupted a Christian opening prayer in the Senate?
Here are some links to some detailed news reports of this story as well as some thoughtful commentary. Some of them include extensive background far beyond anything I have provided here.
