Atheists say prayer makes them physically sick
Atheists recruited to be part of a lawsuit that is trying to rid government
ceremonies such as the inauguration of a president of any invocation or other prayer have claimed they are made physically ill by prayer.“As I watched the inauguration, my stomach did a somersault with disgust for how much our country was violating the constitution (sic), the most important document in our country,” wrote a 15-year-old in testimony being given to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
.The lawsuit was filed before President Obama’s inauguration and subsequently was dismissed at the district court level. Briefs now are being submitted to the appeals court in plaintiffs’ hopes the case will be reopened.
“I felt a temporary state of disconnection when these religious statements and prayers were made during the inauguration,” wrote another paintiff, according to an appendix of information submitted with the plaintiffs’ recent arguments in the case.
”All the prayers made me feel excluded from the political process and a second-class citizen,” wrote another. “But, when Chief Justice Roberts asked the president to say, ‘So help me God,’ I felt threatened and sick to my stomach.”
“The First Amendment cannot be divorced from common sense,” added Brad Dacus, president of PJI. “While atheists, humanists and freethinkers are a tiny minority in America, they are free to express and practice their lack of faith as they please.
“That does not mean,” he continued, “however, that the vast majority of God-fearing citizens and public officials must be silenced in order to appease them.”
In our brave new world every minority, no matter how small, have a right to silence the majority and force the majority to accommodate their views. Despite public prayers at government sponsored events being accepted since before the Constitution until 1962; since then we are now expected to turn away from that history and the expressed approval by the founders of our nation and every president, because a handful of atheists say so!
I doubt they will get their way at SCOTUS, but I expect the appeals courts to agree that such religious speech is unconstitutional and should be banned.
