Well, this happened this week:
Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) said in a since-deleted social media post on Friday it was “deeply troubling” that a Sikh man, whom she initially misidentified as Muslim, led a prayer on the floor of the House.
Miller wrote on X that the man, Giani Surinder Singh, “should never have been allowed” to lead the prayer and called for Congress to uphold the “truth” that “America was founded as a Christian nation.”
Miller’s original post incorrectly identified Singh as Muslim. She subsequently corrected the post before deleting it entirely.
Singh was invited to lead the prayer, a regular tradition ahead of House sessions being called to order, by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.).
And:
Haris Tarin, vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, condemned Miller’s “Islamaphobia” and called on her to apologize while pushing back on Miller’s belief that the U.S. is a Christian nation.
“We were intentionally founded as a nation of all faiths,” Tarin told POLITICO. “Apparently she must have forgotten about the First Amendment in this country.”
And so on.
This sounded familiar to I took a dive into this blogs archives and found this:
The AP reported that today, the first time, a Hindu clergyman gave the opening prayer in the US Senate.
Rajan Zed, from the Indian Association of Northern Nevada, was obviously not a Christian and some Christians in the gallery were obviously not happy about that.
Some details I reported then:
Before he had a chance to speak, a Christian in the gallery piously intoned:
Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight!According to TPMCafe:Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), serving as the presiding officer for the morning, immediately ordered them taken away — though they continued to yell at the Hindu cleric as they were headed out the door, shouting out phrases such as, "No Lord but Jesus Christ!" and "There's only one true God!"You can hear the protestor continue:This is an abomination! We shall have no other Gods before You. You are the one true God.
Check the date on my blog post: 07/12/2007. (My God! Have I been blogging for that long?)
That's 17 years, 10 months and a little over 3 weeks ago. That's the age of one unruly High School junior.
As I blogged back then:
Maybe Hitchens is right: Religion Poisons Everything. Or maybe this is closer:
Americans United for Separation of Church and Stat's Executive Director Barry W. Lynn said that the protest "shows the intolerance of many religious right activists. They say they want more religion in the public square, but it's clear they mean only their religion."See? There's a reason for the separation of Church and State.
See?
[Note: All the links from my 2007 blogpost are broken. It was a long time ago.]
