The New York Times reports that a federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas by a national group of atheists seeking to block his participation in and promotion of a Christian-centered prayer rally next weekend.
Judge Gray H. Miller, of Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas, ruled that the plaintiffs — the foundation and five of its Houston-area members — had suffered no concrete injury and that the governor’s invitations for Texans to join him in a day of prayer were “requests, not commands.” People offended by the governor’s prayer rally can either not attend, not pray or express their disapproval using their First Amendment rights, the judge said. He dismissed the lawsuit and the motion to stop the governor’s official participation.
What a load of hooey and poor judicial reasoning that undermines the wall separating church and state. The damage clearly occurs to all people who are made to feel as outsiders by the head of state government. It is absolute nonsense when the judge says that no one is commanded to go. Citizens doing business with the governor are clearly forced to attend the prayer event in precisely the same way employees are coerced into attending company picnics or the boss’ annual Christmas Party. Sure, you can technically say no, but at what cost?
That the judge doesn’t understand the concept of soft religious coercion shows that he is woefully out of touch with the way things work in the real world. We applaud the courageous group behind the lawsuit, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and hope they appeal the shortsighted ruling.
Maybe the terrible drought down there is a sign of God’s ‘displeasure’ with perry and his Nuremberg prayer rally.
As usual they never practice what they preach:
“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.
Matthew 6:5
ps..just for the record, the above comment about the drought in TX was just sarcasm.
Why was it sarcasm, Gary? The south and southeast portions of the country have suffered extensively from natural and manmade disasters this past decade. I have no trouble believing that god is trying to nudge them to repent from their self-righteous, self-centered, hypocritical ways. But they are a “stiff necked people” & god will surely have to find more extreme measures to get their attention: kinda like with the Pharaoh in their bible.
Paul, I think there are several ways to interpret the disasters. I’ll focus on tornadoes. Since many people surely feel there must be a God-based reason for this annual destruction, let’s take a look at some possibilities:
1. God is punishing America’s finest Christians (AfCs) for doing such a poor job of stopping the advance of the homosexual agenda. And after four decades of failure, He decided extra punishment is warranted this year.
2. God loves His gay children, and is punishing AfCs for their relentless vicious persecution of gay people.
3. God is angry with the states that now permit gay marriage, and decided to punish the Bible Belt states for it. (Hey, it makes as much sense as the U.S. invading Iraq after 9/11.)
4. God doesn’t concern Himself with such trivialities as tornadoes, and He just doesn’t care enough about AfCs to protect them from suffering. And besides, He is tired of the tornado survivors thanking Him, when what they really mean is, “Thank you, God, for killing those other people instead of me.”
5. God gets really annoyed with those who proclaim themselves as the only true Christians, who are certain they know the mind of God, who claim to be the sole authority on the Bible’s meaning, and who march forth in sanctimonious certainty that they are doing His will. And those people are disproportionately concentrated in the Bible Belt.
6. God doesn’t exist. Tornadoes are a result of naturally occurring forces that are now easily explained by science, unlike thousands of years ago when superstition was all people had to explain their world.
So the question is, which reason for Bible Belt tornadoes seems most rational?
Paul, it was sarcasm because I don’t believe in a Deity who ‘punishes’ us for any reason, especially the innocent and wildlife with natural disasters. They are called natural because it’s just a part of life on planet earth, like disease and death. We all get sick and die, but not because we were ‘bad’. I find this fundamentalist version of the Divine to be primitive and childish and fearful of what can’t be controlled.
I’m a practicing Episcopalian, but my approach to God is mostly apophatic (meaning it is much easier to say what God is NOT than to say what God IS).
Sometimes in life, for no apparent reason, s**t Happens. ;)
If you think that Perry lawsuit is dramatic, wait until you see the tort reform he’s going to try to invoke as president.
jacksonville car accident lawyer