Republican Governor of Texas Rick Perry led a prayer rally recently, just days before his official declaration to seek the Republican presidential nomination. Held at Reliant Stadium in Houston, "The Response" rally drew more than 30,000 people for what Al-Jazeera English reports was a Protestants only affair.
"Lord, you are the source of every good thing," Perry prayed. "You are our only hope
and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins. Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us and for that we cry out for your forgiveness."
Participants came to pray alongside Perry for a nation that is "morally bankrupt and
economically shipwrecked." Critics point out Perry’s presence and activism in organizing the rally violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
VIDEO: Al-Jazeera English report
The irony of al-Jazeera reporting on the political activities of U.S. fundamentalists is immediately apparent but the added irony that those fundamentalists are using a form of argument that is identical to the arguments made by Islamic fundamentalists -- "our woes are the result of our failure to have proper faith" -- might be lost on fundamentalists and their flocks.
ReplyDeleteIn the U.S. and probably the entire western world, the principle of the separation of church and state is not an absolute. Religion is welcome in politics but not in government. I see no constitutional violation, though one might say that the spirit of the principle is being treated pretty roughly.