Glass Maze Every jumbled pile of person

The Unseparation of Church and State

I don’t generally see any problem with people engaging in minor forms of worship in places where the constitution technically forbids it: federal buildings, schools, etc. But stuff like what’s going on Indiana right now really creeps me out. A judge just told the legislature there that they couldn’t invoke Christ’s name in the course of official business, because that would implicitly endorse a specific religion, which is a no-no: the Supreme Court found for nonsectarian invocations in 1983, but that’s as far as you’re supposed to go.

But that’s not sitting too well with a few of the lawmakers over there, or with some of the clergy they’re bringing in to say the blessings:

Matters came to a head in April when the Rev. Clarence Brown delivered an invocation that included thanks to God “for our lord and savior Jesus Christ, who died that we might have the right to come together in love.” He said he had been thinking about the separation of church and state, but decided to ignore it because “I have to do what Jesus Christ says for me to do as a witness.”

… which is exactly the problem with inserting God into the everyday of civil affairs. Ultimately, you just can’t reason with this point of view. Faith and government are fundamentally incompatible.

I like Steve Benen’s idea:

I have a compromise solution to offer: Indiana lawmakers can pray, alone or in groups, to any god they like, and with any language they like, before and after the legislative work day begins. Lawmakers who don’t want to pray, or prefer a more inclusive, non-faith-specific prayer, can get together alone or in groups as well.

That seems about right to me.

Yeah, this is truly getting worrisome. What strikes me is how they keep referring to history to prove their point that church and state can be mixed when it’s history that should prove, without a doubt, that it should not.

What scares me slightly more on this subject is the direction the US is taking under the current administration. It appears as though we dislike theocracies around the world – as we begin to build our own here. For example, the Supreme Court’s sudden jolt right-wards. There are other examples people reading this could list I am sure.

Right, exactly. although I don’t think most elements of this administration have any real evangelical/religious leanings. What they crave, what they exist for, is power, and if theocracy/fundamentalism is what gets them there, then so be it.