Government officials praying at public meetings

Introduction

Today I will offer a few comments concerning a recent Supreme Court decision concerning “ceremonial legislative prayer.” I will also offer a suggestion for a counter-offensive by Buddhists, and concerned others, who worry about Christian overreach in this country.

The recent SCOTUS decision

On May 5, 2014, the US Supreme Court decided that “ceremonial legislative prayer” isn't a violation of the First Amendment, which I will now partially quote:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

This decision was made in response to a lawsuit – Town of Greece, New York v. Galloway et al. Greece has a tradition of opening its open-to-the-public town board meetings with a prayer offered by members of the clergy. The respondents didn't sue to ban all types of prayer, only that a “generic” non-Christian God be cited.

Frankly? Someday, I'd like to see a lawsuit brought by an assortment of religious groups that asks the Court to entirely bar prayers in a public-meeting setting. Because this allows scoundrels to, in a manner of speaking, wrap themselves in the flag to suggest their own piety. For instance, in my own state of Illinois, I wouldn't want someone as demonic as Speaker of the House Michael Madigan to offer prayers, since he only worships money and power. Such prayers from a man like him would denigrate religion in general.

My message to Madigan and others like him, “If you're going to screw us, don't pretend to offer prayers which run counter to your truly most inner-held 'beliefs.'”

If lawmakers want to pray for Divine sanction of their proceedings, then let them pray at home. Or let them pray in a room separate from where the public is seated, before the meeting begins. The business of the lawmakers we elect should be the public's business – all of the public's business. These officials are being paid by us – all of us – and should proceed directly to that business.

The Supreme Court claims we've had a long tradition of praying where public business is conducted. In other words, “We've always done it that way, so it must be permissible.” If we've “always done it that way,” we could be guilty of a broad-based hypocrisy. We don't need to look far for an example of this in our Constitution (Article IV, Section 3):

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

The part I highlighted above clearly shows that West Virginia and Maine were each one state that was allowed to become two: West Virginia was once part of Virginia, and Maine was once part of Massachusetts. Yet the Court will never review a case seeking to rescind those illegal admissions because “we've always done it that way.” That is, the mere fact of their long-standing statehood must stand against any Constitutional considerations.

If I were a Christian, I wouldn't want to see believers of others faiths made to endure Christian prayers. As a Buddhist, I believe the Golden Rule should apply: “Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.” I'm sure Christians wouldn't want to sit in on prayers, in a predominantly Jewish community, that spoke of the First Messiah – which isn't Jesus Christ.

A Buddhist Counter-Offensive

Strategy: Withdraw from your local bank any amount of your choosing in the form of paper currency. Then cross out the word “God” and substitute “Buddha” so each bill will read, “In Buddha we trust.” Then take that money back to your bank and deposit it back into your account. Our aim will be to introduce a large number of such bills into general circulation. That'll really piss the Christians off, but so what? It is not against the law to mark up paper currency in such a way. And, as we all know, all good Christians are law-abiding and would respect the rights of others who are acting within the law.

As an experiment, you might try paying for goods and services with such bills. I've done this and been told my money wasn't acceptable. This was at a restaurant, so I told the manager, “That's what I'm paying you with and that's legal tender. If you don't like it, call a cop or void the charge for my meal.” The manager took the money.

I much prefer the far-more effective strategy of using the banks to infuse such bills into general circulation. Of course, the banks could respond by trying to get the US Treasury to accept these “soiled” bills (and mark them for destruction) and replace them with unmarked bills. However, I feel this would be an attempt by the banks to use a taxpayer-supported entity – the Treasury – to dispose of paper money they personally found objectionable. As a taxpayer who funds the operations of the Treasury, I wouldn't want them to waste taxpayer money by honoring such a request by the banks. And if Treasury would choose to comply, that could form the basis of a lawsuit.

And even if the banks wanted to devote man-hours to isolate such money, or damage it so that Treasury could act, let them. As a dedicated Buddhist, I wouldn't have any problem with repeating my strategy – again and again – until the banks decided it was taking too much time and effort to counter.

I love the idea of using this same First Amendment, the part that guarantees freedom of speech, to counter the overreach of the Christian right in the area of establishment of religion.

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Steven Searle, just another member of the Virtual Samgha of
the Lotus Sutra and former candidate for

President of the United States (in 2008 & 2012)

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com