First up from The God Machine this week is a bizarre religious critique of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, who mentioned his religion at an event honoring those killed in the Virginia Tech slayings. As my friend Cliff Schecter noted, The Politico’s Roger Simon hammered Edwards for his God talk.
Does John Edwards include Jews in his prayers? Or Muslims? Or Hindus? Or any other non-Christians?
He didn’t the other day. The other day, in order to commemorate those killed at Virginia Tech, Edwards led a prayer “in Christ’s name” at Ryman Auditorium, which bills itself as “Nashville’s Premier Performance Hall.”
Edwards has a perfect right to pray publicly or privately any way he wants to. But people who are not Christians often feel left out of prayers like his…. Edwards probably did not know the religions of those killed at Virginia Tech when he gave his prayer, but isn’t that the point? Why not include all religions in your prayers?
If you are running for president, why not demonstrate you want to be the president of all Americans by being inclusive, rather than exclusive?
Yes, we’ve apparently reached a point in which Democratic presidential candidates are being attacked, not for their secularism, but for expressing their religiosity.
As Digby put it, “[A]fter years and years of being told that they must appeal to the vast numbers of Christians who would vote for Democrats if only they weren’t so hostile to their faith, the new rule is that the godless Democrats must not emphasize their own Christian faith or risk being called intolerant. Meanwhile, if they include other religions in their speeches, holiday greetings and prayers, they are said to be waging a war on Christians. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that Democrats just can’t win with these people.”
Next up is an update on a This Week in God story we’ve been following for a long while — the plight of the family of Army Sgt. Patrick Stewart, who died in Afghanistan, and whose Wiccan faith has run into official resistance from Pentagon leaders. This week, the family finally received some good news.
If you’re just joining us, Sgt. Stewart was killed in Afghanistan on Sept. 25, 2005, when his CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by enemy fire. A member of Nevada’s Army National Guard, Stewart was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Stewart’s widow asked to place a Wiccan symbol, the pentacle, on his memorial plaque. The Bush administration refused — the Veterans Affairs Department has 30 “approved” religious symbols, including one for non-believers, but Wiccans are left out.
Faced with a possible lawsuit they were likely to lose, VA officials finally yielded.
To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.
The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. […]
“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference Monday. “They wanted precisely the same treatment that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone else.”
In a press statement, Lynn (my former boss) added, “This settlement has forced the Bush Administration into acknowledging that there are no second class religions in America, including among our nation’s veterans. It is a proud day for religious freedom in the United States.”
It is, indeed.