Rev. Barry W. Lynn: March 2009 Archives

Dan Gilgoff is now reporting that former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy has been invited to join the White House "Advisory Panel On Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships".  This unnecessary body already has plenty of people on it who are way off the mark on civil rights and liberties.  Dungy will be another.

Dungy's fund-raising for the James Dobson-affiliated "Indiana Family Institute" and his unequivocal opposition to same-sex marriage based on his view that God opposes it make him an unlikely candidate for useful discussion of faith based partnerships and civil rights, one of the key issues the panel will hammer out.

Jay, I don't see American history helping you much on your bootstrapping argument about past practice and the National Day of Prayer.

Remember that Thomas Jefferson actually vetoed day of prayer resolutions as President-and those were usually focused on some special event.  I can find no record at all of any effort to set aside one specific day every year as a countrywide time for religious ritual.  Can you?

Moreover, even though we all know that some states had "official religions" at the time the First Amendment was ratified, there is no doubt that the same "federalist" principle that lead some to question the wisdom of a national army would lead to reticence about a national day for religiosity.

Well, Jay, I enjoyed our debate last week at Gettysburg College and look forward to doing more live and in-person events.  I hope you are now satisfied that no students in Kentucky were threatened with arrest and that all of the furor was caused by students who apparently didn't believe that school rules applied to them.  But onward...

Of course I cannot tolerate National Day of Prayer, the first Monday in May.  The fact that the government has the audacity to declare such an event is mind-numbing.  I always wonder what the Congress and the President think we should be doing that day: pray harder, longer, louder, or with hands more tightly clasped together?

Yes, Jay, even I was shocked by your report of "prayer police" in Kentucky.  However, having heard these tales in the past on so many occasions, I got myself under control and immediately realized that many facts are missing.

Students do have a right to pray in schools so long as it is not promoted or orchestrated by the school itself or teachers, administrators or other school officials.  It is important to note that even you and the ACLJ, however, have never said that the "right" is so broad that praying can interrupt school activities.  I mean, you wouldn't support having a student say: "Look, I'll be skipping the algebra test this period to have a quality conversation with God."  At least, I hope you would not.

Just yesterday, the Senate trounced the effort to create a kind of "voucher scheme forever" for the District of Columbia.  The vote was 58 opposed and 39 in favor.  The issue will not ever go away, of course, because the facts apparently don't matter to a significant minority of people.

As I pointed out in my earlier post, voucher plans do not work.  Some of the parents in the DC program actually don't like the program, many parents eligible for it don't even apply, and in general the students themselves have mixed reactions (but don't feel particularly safer in their new schools than they did in their old ones.)  But, I digress with the facts.

Nevada Senator Jon Ensign has leaped into the debate over the District of Columbia's school voucher program with both feet.  Although not usually known in Congress for his interest in education, his interest in ideology is apparent justification for attempting...

Jay, I am incredulous about your continued "shock" that pro-choice Presidential candidate Barack Obama is now pro-choice President Barack Obama. The President made it clear throughout the campaign that he was pro-choice: noting that he would overturn the Mexico City...