On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:08:49 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> The problem with this is that its the **same** excuse that is used by
> nearly every city council, and other government body, for ***actually***
> violating the constitution, by having an opening prayer, then babbling
> about how it just wasn't convenient for them to find a Buddhist that
> day, or some such, to "flesh out" the roster and make it non-Christian
> specific. Oh, and of course, they ***never ever*** open without it, so
> it very much supports religion in general, even when they play lip
> service to being "fair" about which one of the, maybe 3, they will
> bother/allow to open the meeting.

I don't entirely disagree with what you've said above.  Having a prayer 
of any sort during government proceedings is a problem for me.

But that's not what we're talking about here.

> Sorry, but Warp is dead right. 

I respectfully disagree.  But hey, we can do that.

> The government promoting a day of prayer
> does not **in any way** imply anything other than an endorsement of
> religion in general, 

Which in and of itself does not violate the the constitution.  
Acknowledging that some people are religions is different from saying 
"You must pray on this day, and if you don't, you're going to jail".

From a historical context, that's what the founders were dealing with:  
In England, there was a state-sponsored religion, and practicing 
protestants were legally barred from practicing their own non-state-
sanctioned religion.

> and too often, given the words of those who do such
> promotion, defend doing so, and get elected on the principle of the
> "Christian nation" BS, a *specific* one. Its kind of like how federal
> money gets spent on "faith based initiatives", yet, somehow, 99.9% of
> all the initiatives getting funded are Christian ones, even when other
> groups present alternatives, or worse, alternatives that are not "known"
> to lie, cheat, steal, or fail to provide the things they claim they need
> the money for (not that we would know, in many cases, since they are
> often sub-groups of bigger groups, and only the "government" money needs
> to be accounted for). The 0.1% is pure, 100%, lip service to the
> principle, and mean jack shit with respect to the idea that the
> government isn't "endorsing" something.

And those things should be dealt with individually.  That doesn't 
inherently make the NDoP a bad thing or a violation of the US 
Constitution.  Again, this is something entirely different than the 
subject at hand.

Jim

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