Fasting and praying on the House floor today…

The ridiculous “fasting and prayer” resolution I mentioned yesterday is scheduled for a floor vote in the House today.

The question isn’t whether it will pass or not, it’s whether anyone will have the guts to vote against it. There are usually four or five members who take church-state separation seriously enough to vote against these stunts (Reps. Edwards, Scott, Frank, and Nadler represent something resembling an informal “church-state caucus”), but with the war going on, they may see no need to fall on their sword for this. Besides, Edwards is from Texas…and they’ve got a lot of guns down there.

Just to take a moment to continue my rant on this absurd resolution, I’ve already mentioned why it ignores First Amendment principles and distracts attention away from real work Congress should be doing. I wanted to add that the bill’s sponsors also aren’t afraid to play fast and loose when it comes to history.

If you’ve ever read a congressional resolution, you know that a bill’s sponsors load it up with a list of points that lead with “Whereas.” It’s essentially bulleted points about why the resolution makes sense. The “fasting and prayer” resolution includes a few historical points for the “whereas” list, several of which occurred before the Revolutionary War, but one point in particular stuck out at me:

“Whereas, on June 28, 1787, during the debate of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin, convinced of God’s intimate involvement in human affairs, implored the Congress to seek the assistance of Heaven in all its dealings…”

If you didn’t know better, you’d read this and think Franklin was responsible for including formal prayers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The problem lies in the detail this bill’s sponsors left out: Franklin was unsuccessful.

Religious right groups love to use this anecdote, but it’s misleading, at best. Franklin did ask members of the Constitutional Convention to consider adding prayer proceedings, but his request was ignored and deliberations for creating the Constitutional were held without prayer sessions. The day Franklin introduced the proposal, delegates voted to adjourn rather than deal with the request. When the Convention reconvened, the prayer matter was not brought up again.

I’ll let you know how the vote goes today. Considering all the attention I’m giving this, you might think this resolution was of some consequence, but it’s not. The bill is just a non-binding resolution and a chance for politicians to exploit religion for a little while. Nevertheless, it’s annoying.