July 11, 2007

Don't Forget, Hinduism Is Devil Worship

by PG

Thus saith Jack Chick.

I don't remember how I got on the American Family Association's mailing list, but they send an email at least once a week. Two of their major themes are 1) that their boycott of Ford for its tolerance of homosexuals is partly responsible for Ford's loss of market share ("Boycott helps drop Ford sales 6.8% in May") and 2) including sexual orientation in the federal hate crimes law will make the mere verbal expression of intolerance a crime.

I got an email today that reminded me of an old discussion of Judge Wilkinson's claim that discriminating against polytheistic faiths in selecting a person to give an invocation is constitutional. In fairness to AFA, rather than excerpting the email message, I have copied it in full below. I do appreciate their realizing that treating Hinduism as an equal religion is constitutional, even if they find such treatment distasteful:

July 10, 2007

Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your entire email list of family and friends.

Hindu to open Senate with prayer
Send an email to your senator now, expressing your disappointment in the Senate decision to invite a Hindu to open the session with prayer.

Dear P,

Please read this news report from OneNewsNow.com.

On Thursday, a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nevada, by the name of Rajan Zed is scheduled to deliver the opening prayer in the U.S. Senate. Zed tells the Las Vegas Sun that in his prayer he will likely include references to ancient Hindu scriptures, including Rig Veda, Upanishards, and Bhagavard-Gita. Historians believe it will be the first Hindu prayer ever read at the Senate since it was formed in 1789.

WallBuilders president David Barton is questioning why the U.S. government is seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god. Barton points out that since Hindus worship multiple gods, the prayer will be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto "One Nation Under God."

TAKE ACTION � Call your Senators at 202-224-3121
"In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods," the Christian historian explains. "And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the Declaration [of Independence] when they talked about Creator -- that's not one that fits here because we don't know which creator we're talking about within the Hindu religion."

TAKE ACTION � Click here to send your E-mail today!

Barton says given the fact that Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public, he questions the motivation of Senate leaders. "This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world," he observes. "You look at India, you look at Nepal -- there's persecution going in both of those countries that is gendered by the religious belief that is present there, and Hindu dominates in both of those countries."

And while Barton acknowledges there is not constitutional problem with a Hindu prayer in the Senate, he wonders about the political side of it. "One definitely wonders about the pragmatic side of it," he says. "What is the message, and why is the message needed? And will it actually communicate anything other than engender with folks like me a lot of questions?"

Barton says he knows of at least seven cases where Christians have lost their bid to express their own faith in a public prayer.

Zed is reportedly the first Hindu to deliver opening prayers in an American state legislature, having done so in both the Nevada State Assembly and Nevada State Senate earlier this year. He has stated that Thursday's prayer will be "universal in approach," despite being drawn from Hindu religious texts.

Take Action
Send an email to your senator now, expressing your disappointment in the Senate decision to invite a Hindu to open the session with prayer.

Click Here to Email Your Senators Now!

If you think our efforts are worthy, would you please support us with a small gift? Thank you for caring enough to get involved.

Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your family and friends.

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

P.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends!

There's so much to love, but I think my favorite has to be the simple declaration, "In Hindu..." Also, unless there are multiple Rajan Zeds in Nevada, apparently he used to be a postal worker and recently lost an appeal to the Federal Circuit. Hopefully no senator will be convinced by the AFA to stage the same sort of walkout a couple of Republicans did when a Muslim gave the invocation in the Washington State legislature.

July 11, 2007 9:36 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I wish you hadn't written this post, as its resurrection of suppressed memories of Chesterfield really put a spike in my blood pressure (Chesterfield was one of my first "wig out" opinions and staple of my debate cases for the next year).

Posted by: David Schraub at July 11, 2007 10:27 PM

Did you ever read Jack Chick's tracts "Wounded Children" or "Doom Town"? They are so anti-homosexual that they almost make you laugh! Check out www.316now.com for short film versions of these two Chick tracts, plus 9 others. It helps to heal the pain...

Posted by: howard at July 15, 2007 10:03 PM

howard,
In a sort of fairness toward Chick, I think his tracts manage to damn at least 95% of Americans. All Dungeons & Dragons players, non-Protestants, and (biggest group of all) people who have had premarital sex, unless they repent of those sins, are doomed.

Someone actually handed the Kali=Satan tract to my grandmother at the Super WalMart several years ago. She isn't English literate, so she asked me what it said; I was so angry that even my small vocabulary of our family's native language wasn't coming to mind for me to explain. In retrospect, I have to wonder how long the guy who gave it to her must have been lurking by the checkout waiting for a Hindu to show up, given that there are no more than 30 Hindu families total in my hometown.

Posted by: PG at July 15, 2007 10:13 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?






Sitting in Review
Armen (e-mail) #
PG (e-mail) #
Dave (e-mail) #
Craig (e-mail) #
About Us
Senior Status
Chris Geidner #
Jeremy Blachman #
Nick Morgan #
Wings & Vodka #
Recent Opinions
Symposia
Persuasive Authority
De Novo Reporter
Research


Powered by
Movable Type 5.02