{"id":1239,"date":"2013-08-27T05:15:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/why-is-religious-pandering-so-prevalent.html"},"modified":"2013-08-27T05:15:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-27T05:15:00","slug":"why-is-religious-pandering-so-prevalent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/why-is-religious-pandering-so-prevalent.html","title":{"rendered":"Why is Religious Pandering So Prevalent?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Religion has long had an extraordinary influence in U.S. politics compared to other democracies. But this isn\u2019t just a far-right phenomenon: If the Obama administration has its way, this influence might go even further. For example, the administration recently filed an\u00a0amicus brief<\/a>\u00a0in the Supreme Court arguing that it is constitutional to conduct official Christian prayers at town council meetings.<\/span><\/div>\n
The Supreme Court case stems from the town of Greece in New York, which opens nearly all its board sessions with prayers by Christian clergy. President Obama joined congressional Republicans and the religious right in supporting this practice. Ken Klukowski, a lawyer for the Family Research Council who crafted\u00a0a separate amicus brief<\/a>\u00a0for the House Republicans,praised<\/a>\u00a0the administration for filing \u201ca surprisingly conservative brief.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
Both the\u00a0Obama administration<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0religious conservatives<\/a>\u00a0note that official prayers have been conducted before sessions of Congress ever since the days of the Founding Fathers. In their view, official prayers at town council sessions should likewise be allowed. On the other hand, official prayers in public schools have been unconstitutional for decades. This contradiction exemplifies how the Supreme Court has adopted a\u00a0flexible interpretation of the First Amendment<\/a>. Paradoxically, the Court has issued many decisions enforcing the separation of church and state, yet begins its own proceedings by\u00a0announcing,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cGod save the United States and this Honorable Court.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
The debate on official prayers or references to God commonly focuses on whether theymarginalize non-Christians or non-believers<\/a>. The town of Greece has thus defended itself by arguing that members of non-Christian faiths and atheists are (theoretically) free to deliver invocations too. However, \u201ca town council meeting is not like a church service,\u201d as Rev. Barry Lynn\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0on behalf of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, an organization\u00a0opposing all official prayers<\/a>\u00a0at government meetings. (The fact that Rev. Lynn is an\u00a0ordained minister<\/a>\u00a0of the United Church of Christ illustrates how supporting a secular government should not be conflated with having anti-religious views.)<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religion has long had an extraordinary influence in U.S. politics compared to other democracies. But this isn\u2019t just a far-right phenomenon: If the Obama administration has its way, this influence might go even further. For example, the administration recently filed an\u00a0amicus brief\u00a0in the Supreme Court arguing that it is constitutional to conduct official Christian prayers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy is Religious Pandering So Prevalent?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Religion has long had an extraordinary influence in U.S. politics compared to other democracies. 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