NP Dershowitz

[Doug Millison]

This touches on many Pynchonian themes -- religion, U.S. origins -- 
although I expect some of you will enjoy it even without that tenuous 
connection to our discussion here.
-Doug

   Bush Starts Off by Defying the Constitution


    By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

   The very first act of the new Bush administration was to have a Protestant
Evangelist minister officially dedicate the inauguration to Jesus Christ,
who he declared to be "our savior." Invoking "the Father, the Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ" and "the Holy Spirit," Billy Graham's son, the man selected by
President George W. Bush to bless his presidency, excluded the tens of
millions of Americans who are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists,
Unitarians, agnostics and atheists from his blessing by his particularistic
and parochial language.

  The plain message conveyed by the new administration is that George W.
Bush's America is a Christian nation, and that non-Christians are welcome
into the tent so long as they agree to accept their status as a tolerated
minority rather than as fully equal citizens. In effect, Bush is saying:

     "This is our home, and in our home we pray to Jesus as our savior.
      If you want to be a guest in our home, you must accept the way we
pray."

  But the United States is neither a Christian nation nor the exclusive home
of any particular religious group. Non-Christians are not guests. We are as
much hosts as any Mayflower-descendant Protestant. It is our home as well as
theirs. And in a home with so many owners, there can be no official
sectarian prayer. That is what the 1st Amendment is all about, and the first
act by the new administration was in defiance of our Constitution.

This was surely not the first time in our long history that Jesus has been
invoked at an official governmental assembly. But we are a different and
more religiously diverse nation than we were in years past. There are now
many more Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others who do not accept Jesus as
their savior. It is permissible in the U.S. to reject any particular
theology. Indeed, that is part of our glorious diversity.

  What is not acceptable is for a presidential inauguration to exclude
millions of citizens from its opening ceremony by dedicating it to a
particular religious  "savior."   Our first president, George Washington,
wrote to the tiny Jewish community in Rhode Island that in this new nation,
we will no longer speak of mere "toleration," because toleration implies
that minorities enjoy their inherent rights "by the indulgence" of the
majority. President Bush should read that letter and show it to the Rev.
Franklin Graham, who told the media on the day before the inauguration that
his prayer "will be for unity"; instead, it was for the Trinity. Uniting for
Jesus may be Graham's definition of unity, but it is as un-American as if a
rabbi giving the official prayer had prayed for the arrival of the "true
Messiah," thus insulting the millions of Christians who believe Jesus is the
true Messiah.

Inaugurations are not the appropriate setting for theological proclamations
of who is, and who is not, the true Messiah. Perhaps at Bob Jones University
it is appropriate for an honorary degree recipient to declare Jesus to be
the only king of the United States, but the steps of the Capitol should not
be confused with the lectern of a denominational church.

The inauguration ended with another Protestant minister inviting all who
agree that Jesus is "the Christ" to say, "Amen" (ironically, a word that
originated in Jewish prayer or, alternatively, originally a Jewish acronym
for "God, the King, forever.") Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), along with
many others who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, was put in the
position of either denying his own faith or remaining silent while others
around him all said, "Amen." This is precisely the position in which young
public school students are placed when "voluntary" prayer is conducted at
school events. If they join in prayer that is inconsistent with their
religious beliefs, they have been coerced into violating their conscience.
If they leave or refuse to join, they stand out as different among their
peers. No student should be put in that position by their public schools at
an assembly, just as no public official should be placed in that situation
by their government at an inauguration.

If George W. Bush wants all Americans to accept him as their president,  he
made an inauspicious beginning by sandwiching his unity speech between two
divisive, sectarian and inappropriate prayers.

    Alan M. Dershowitz Is a Professor at Harvard Law School
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