Historic Hindu Prayer Disrupted
Sorry for those both getting my LJ and those in Dark_Christian, but I thought this was important enough to put up in both places.
As most people know, the American Family Association is a right-wing dominionist group that mobilizes many thousands of fundamentalists through email campaigns. A few days ago their "action issue" was the fact that on Thursday, a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nevada would deliver the opening prayer of the U.S. Senate. They knew that Rajan Zed was expected to refer to ancient Hindu scriptures, including the Rig Veda, Upanishads, and Baghavad Gita.
The AFA and a related group, WallBuilders, got their panties in a twist over the fact that the prayers might have been polytheistic. "In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods," they wailed. WallBuilders president David Barton "question[ed] the motivation of Senate leaders" since "Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public," and in his opinion, not worthy of equal regard or treatment by the government.
The campaign asked people to call their senators in protest, and then to follow a weblink to send their senator a canned note through the AFA website.
The day after this announcement went out, the AFA's 'news' wing then ran this story claiming that "[the choice of a Hindu prayer] represents an official stamp by the government on paganism, a move which may draw God's anger according to biblical example."
It's not surprising, therefore, that fundamentalist Christian protesters disrupted the event:
The protesters were arrested, and the group responsible sent out a press release condemning Senators for not joining the protest.
By the way, if you would like to express your opinion on this issue, you can contact your senators both by calling them at 202-224-3121 and by emailing your senator through the senate's website here.
As most people know, the American Family Association is a right-wing dominionist group that mobilizes many thousands of fundamentalists through email campaigns. A few days ago their "action issue" was the fact that on Thursday, a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nevada would deliver the opening prayer of the U.S. Senate. They knew that Rajan Zed was expected to refer to ancient Hindu scriptures, including the Rig Veda, Upanishads, and Baghavad Gita.
The AFA and a related group, WallBuilders, got their panties in a twist over the fact that the prayers might have been polytheistic. "In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods," they wailed. WallBuilders president David Barton "question[ed] the motivation of Senate leaders" since "Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public," and in his opinion, not worthy of equal regard or treatment by the government.
The campaign asked people to call their senators in protest, and then to follow a weblink to send their senator a canned note through the AFA website.
The day after this announcement went out, the AFA's 'news' wing then ran this story claiming that "[the choice of a Hindu prayer] represents an official stamp by the government on paganism, a move which may draw God's anger according to biblical example."
It's not surprising, therefore, that fundamentalist Christian protesters disrupted the event:
Click to viewThe protesters were arrested, and the group responsible sent out a press release condemning Senators for not joining the protest.
By the way, if you would like to express your opinion on this issue, you can contact your senators both by calling them at 202-224-3121 and by emailing your senator through the senate's website here.