April 2008 Lafayette IN campaign event (h/t kevin.oshea)
I thought I’d seen everything when it comes to religion and politics, but this is a new one.
Dan Gilgoff covers religion for US News and World Report, and had a fabulous FDL Book Salon visit in September 2007 to talk about The Jesus Machine, his book on James Dobson and the culture wars. Recently Dan noticed a new tradition for presidential events, which goes back to Obama’s campaign events:
In a departure from previous presidents, [Obama's] public rallies are opening with invocations that have been commissioned and vetted by the White House.
Huh?
OK, every president has an advance team that scouts out locations, arranges for appropriate speakers, and deals with stage managing public events. That’s a given — and it’s a good thing. Speakers are especially key, as they help frame the event’s message. Thus, the advance team wants everyone to be on the same page, and often ask to see copies of remarks of the lesser political speakers ahead of time. This, too, is a good thing, and is a long-established tradition (as is the tradition of lesser speakers dumping their prepared remarks and speaking off the cuff, much to the displeasure of the advance team).
But regularly opening public presidential political events with prayers? And vetting those prayers? Again from Dan:
Though invocations have long been commonplace at presidential inaugurations and certain events like graduations or religious services at which presidents are guests, the practice of commissioning and vetting prayers for presidential rallies is unprecedented in modern history, according to religion and politics experts.
I’m not sure which bothers me more – the scheduling or the vetting. If the prayers must be vetted by a political staffer, that’s a sign to me that perhaps this is not the proper venue for a prayer.
But if President Obama’s advance team ever comes to Kansas City and wants me to open the event with prayer, I’ll make them a deal: you let me vet his speech, and I’ll let you vet my prayer.
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Could improve the contents of his speech ….
After the Jeremiah Wright flap, you find it unacceptable for Obama to vet ministers?
Good morning Peterr.
It strikes me as strange also.
What is a prayer that it would have to be vetted for political implications?
Prayers are traditionally thought of as seeking favor or giving thanks.
Vetting a prayer ?
Unless it is Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter doing the invocation, I say let them pray as they wish.
I can see the point of vetting the prayers to avoid unwanted PR disasters because these invocations aren’t really about religion but politics, or rather politics dressed up in the cloth of religion. It is pseudo-religion and religiosity.
I wonder how many Wiccans, Moslems, and atheists are asked to give these invocations.
That crossed my mind but I still think it is a free speech issue.
Leaving aside the question of “should a political event open with prayer” . . .
I’ve got no problem with the White House deciding who to invite to pray, but having veto power over the prayer that person uses? Yeah, I’ve got a problem with that.
If the White House doesn’t trust the person praying to say something appropriate, that says a helluva lot, starting with “then why did you ask me to do this?”
The inclusion of a prayer at a political event strikes me as a rather cynical artifice.
kansas city MO or kansas City KS?
i don’t have any problem with the prayers. vetting? probably not that either. i mean if it’s to ensure that the prayer fits in with tyhe theme of the speech, what’s the problem?
So you don’t think the prez should vet anyone who speaks at his events.
So, unlike other human beings, people of the cloth who are normally OK, never include in prayers anything that could ever embarrass a prez.
What if the vetting includes a complimentary flea-dip?
I have a problem with any prayers at public civic events. END OF STORY.
There are certainly some speakers for whom that would be desirable.
Amen to that!
o/t.
Nobody fucks with Joe The Biden.
Censoring a speaker, particularly someone offering prayer, does strike me as offensive, but the way our politics are conducted lately may have led us to this.
No – not at all.
Prayer, at some level, implies trust. If someone asks me to pray for or with them, they are also saying that there is some kind of relationship that says “I believe you are responsible enough to trust with my relationship to the divine.” To then turn around and say “But let me check out what you’re going to say first” kind of runs counter to the whole notion of trust.
I’m more than capable of embarrassing a president, believe me. But you either trust the person praying or you don’t. If your fear of embarrassment is so high that you’ve got to proof my text, we’ve got much bigger things to worry about than my little prayer.
So to speak. *g*
I’ve got a problem with it too.
But given that others have a different opinion, that’s hardly the end of the story.
I’m not religous so I’m guessing here that trust in the person of the cloth is developed by attending services and seeing him or her in action. Which is vetting. A more thorough one than prez advance people have time to do.
A “prayer” is a speech. Vet ‘em like the others.
I just wish there were no prayers allowed at official government events.
Selah!
Sorry for the off topic but here is Stevie Wonder at the White House.
http://www.democraticundergrou…..215;277738
Agreed. This is creepy all around. How’s about starting political events with a patriotic song?
Since it doesn’t seem to work, if you wish you can go to DU and find the clip. It is worthwhile, as far as I am concerned. (not
Yup. Considering that the press has been veering between slanging him for his nitpicky vetting and then jumping all over him for the failure of some of his nominees (apparently forgetting how the Republicans hosed Clinton’s nominees so hard that it took three tries to get the AG position filled), he really doesn’t have a choice but to vet.
I’m guessing that Obama is doing this at least partly to blunt the inevitable criticisms from the religious right that he is insufficiently Christian, a secret Muslim pretending to be Christian, or (perhaps worst of all!!!) a godless atheist socialist commie humanist whatever. (Bipartisanship at its finest??)
If he does this everywhere he has a public event, it is inevitable that he will not know personally any of the local clergy, at least not well enough to have developed the trust needed to say, “hey, I want you to do an invocation at my event” without further asking “what might you say?” Message discipline and all that.
i sorta hesitate to say this… ok, not so much. just a little *g*.
imo, peterr, you are confusing political speech with religious speech. which kinda makes sense, as that is what the politicians, including obama, want us to do. that’s why they dress up political speech with religious symbolism – even by having a preacher give it.
hugh hits it exactly right – it’s pseudo-religion and religiosity. it would be better if no religious person agreed to take part in the farce. and far, far better if the politicians didn’t perpetuate the farce.
Yup. The funny thing is that he’s always referenced his Christianity, to the disdain of atheists of all political persuasions, yet it hasn’t stopped the wackier folks from swallowing all the GOP-promoted myths you describe.
Exactly.
Actually, I think the vetting part comes with the selection of the speaker.
So I’ll generalize my 10. You think that all humans who are normally OK never say anything that could embarrass a prez.
You’re talking about a political environment in which Obama was attacked for not wearing flag pins — and where the media actually treated this as a legitimate basis for attack.
The US is, still, the most deeply religious nation in what used to be called the “first world”. And patriotism is TIG-welded to this — see how the Pledge of Allegiance was rewritten in the 1950s to add ‘under God’.
OT, Phoenix Woman, I swiped your article on the shock absorber and put up a post at Fixer and Gordons, a mechanic themed Blog and gave you props.
Hope you don’t mind.
Excellent idea to accord religion and politics their own space, but it is so hard to seperate one’s morality from one’s political views and not always beneficial.
No, why would you think that? /s
*g*
I agree with hugh. My point about the vetting is that this is what makes it so blatantly, obviously, completely political. If it were “religious speech,” it wouldn’t be vetted by political operatives.
People are people and anyone has the potential to embarrass a President, including the President.
The whole vetting thing , to me, makes me uncomfortable.
Too much micro managing.
I know very little about staging events, but it’s my impression that micromanaging is the key to success.
and the national motto was changed from “E Pluribus Unum” (roughly, “out of many, one”) to “In God We Trust” (all others pay cash). You tell me, which is truer to the ideals of the “Founding Fathers”? I want the original restored.
I think I feel the same way about this. I have attended a church (briefly) wherein the prayers were sometimes just wishes that God would smite or change one group or another, and shower ‘the faithful’ with goodness forever.
“Please make your will known to those who would teach our children satanism in the guise of Evolution…” etc. etc.
on the contrary – i am not suggesting one separate one’s morality from politics. we already have too much of that. what i am saying is that i would like it if we could tell the difference between politics and religion.
No one is suggesting that the president personally knows everyone personally who is speaking, including the person offering a prayer. The advance team, for any event, comes up with a list of local dignitaries that they know and have some kind of relationship with and passes that on to the WH. Once they give their approval, the advance team goes (or goes back) to these folks and issues a formal invitation to participate.
That’s the first level of vetting. “You’ve been chosen, here’s where you fit in the program, here’s the general theme of the day, and (if you have a speaking role) here’s how long you have to speak.”
The second level is to go to anyone with a speaking part, and ask to see the content of their remarks.
I’m sick of sky-god cultists insinuating themselves into goddamn everything. And being WATBs when anyone suggests they GO HOME AND FUCKING PRAY.
What does it mean to be “deeply religious”? Is materialism a religion? If so, I agree Americans are deeply religious. Or is it about religious intolerance? Because again I can see Americans as deeply religious in that sense. Hypocrisy? Ditto. In pretty much any other way, not so much.
Americans are really hypocrites. Even many people who are not religious nor go to church want their elected officials to be religious. How much sense does this make? All religion should stay out of politics and politics should certainly stay out of religion. Enough of this bowing to the fundies.
I don’t know if it is a matter of religion mucking up politics or the reverse. Both appear to require blind faith and combining the two is asking rather a lot from we the lowly.
There you go again. Separating the Churchstate. It’s a single word, according to the Beltway. Has been since St. Ronnie slayed the secular dragon. Not.
St. Obama is now a public official 24/7. He is not the nation’s chief prayer, he is its chief executive. Please leave the pastoral work to the professionals and pray in private. But by all means, Mr. President, tell us what you’re doing, what you want to do, and why.
Smooches.
Long time no see!
Worked for pre-World War 2 Germany.
;>)
There isn’t much difference (three letters, in fact) between ‘prayer’ and ‘pander’ where politics is involved. I advocate moving past this public conceit and putting prayer back into its proper place – as a personal evocation of one’s deity and not a conspicuous show of ‘faith’ for the benefit of the credulous.
Hypocisy is not unique to democracy and religion, it’s just heavily concentrated there.
i’m only comfortable with prayers at the event if there’s a funeral involved. or maybe a bat mitzvah.
guess i didn’t need to hesitate even a little bit. *g*
It is a test to see if the audience will believe a pack of bloody lies. If they believe in fairies OB gives one speech, if the audience seems sceptical he has to speak some truths.
When the hell are they going to ditch this stupid ruddy god crap in public life, it should be kept in private like the the belief in ghosts and goblins.
yo, busted – mwah :)
How does being invited to speak equate with “insinuating themselves’?
but it’s fake. just like wearing a flag pin is fake patriotism.
it may be impolitic to say so, especially when obama either believes the lies or is playing along.
but it’s still fake.
It’s always good to hesitate long enough to hit “Preview” though.
lol. all my hesitation comes before starting to type. which i guess is pretty apparent to anyone who attempts to read my comments.
we’re supposed to prevue? wyy?
And I really agree with that.
Do you think that the right wing will stop using their religious beliefs as a motivating and fund-raising tool?
Well, I don’t think there should be any prayers at such events. But if you ever grew up in Texas or some other state where invocations open FOOTBALL GAMES and such, it’s like a being a tadpole swimming against an ocean tide. Waste too much energy pushing back, and all you do is come off like a flaming jerk.
Trust me, I know whereof I speak.
I find it usually gives me an opportunity to throw in a few more choice words of “The Peoples English”.
exactly.
unfortunately, what currently passes for our ‘culture’ seems to require more than a minimal amount of faking certain things.
for example, Shrub had to fake like he actually cared about the people of New Orleans after Katrina.
oh I don’t know. vetting prayers may not be such a bad idea when you insist on asking the likes of rick warren to give your invocations. I mean, what’s to prevent the wingnut cleric of the day from opening an international trade summit with “hear our prayer: cause the people to rise up and purge the scourge of gayness from the land in a grand crusade.
and god will smite you if you support any stimulus action!”
When I was younger it vexed me that a majority of people profess belief in the supernatural. Resistance is a futile expenditure of energy however, so when it becomes to much too bear I separate myself from the herd.
Peterr !
Thought provoking post. Many good thoughts on both sides, thanks !
WTF is prayer doing in a government related sitch?
Separation of church and state?
. . . . ‘kin BS. Let ‘em pray in the foxholes.
-Harumph
he did? I thought he was too busy fiddling with Toby Keith and pal’ing around with McInsane
they should have vetted rick warren i bit more, doncha think?
Hey, that’s MY line . . .*G*
I hear ya bro !
I’m a meditation teacher but I have a big problem with blind faith … especially when blind faith has caused so much irreligious acts in the World.
Slainte Mhath!
*G*
Political events should begin with the pledge of allegiance and end with the national anthem
Betsy, your snark has been A++ the last few days ! *g*
I thought Warren’s speech was irrelevant to all but his
blindloyal flock and I can only hope it was a result of Obama’s people redacting his planned speech. I’d hate to think he got this popular from spooning that sort of Oatmeal on a regular basis.Perhaps even a moment of silence in honor of our fallen heroes.
It’s still early out here, and that makes WAY too much sense . . . but it will STILL be too early out here at noon, and it will STILL make too much sense.
Kaplah!!! *G*
And there should always be at least one Uncle Sam on stilts, more if the budget permits.
Ask the people yer micromanaging (if yer running a business) how they feel . . . . as a worker bee, I’ve OFTEN found it greatly insane to be micromanaged on a regular basis . . . . most times the micro managers didn’t have a phrellin clue, either. Also. Still.
Now if there’s money or morals involved . . . well, it’s STILL better to keep religon out of the workplace, the public place, the political place . . . . my place . . . ;-)
In a time when 60+ million American adults identify themselves as members of the religious wingnut right and one of the most powerful clerics in the country (Ayatollah Dobson) annoints an actual, literal arms dealer as his successor, one is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place on these matters. You can’t give these brownshirts a public voice but you also can’t force ‘em into the shadows to plot the next beerhall putsch, either. Giving them a voice while vetting them may, sadly, be the only reasonable course of action.
Do you run events? My micromanaging comment was related only to that.
Maybe kissing the bloody flag as well?
LOL
fireworks too … because we like to see sh*t blow up, but only if nobody gets hurt.
culture of make believe.
Suppose I were invited to give the opening invocation. What is to stop me from going off script? The Secret Service is going to tackle me? If the policy is to vet everybody with a speaking part, that should include the prayer. None of the ministers asked to deliver a prayer was censored by Obama’s staff. The issue here is separation of church and state, not censorship.
Of course, there’s no way of making the speaker stick to the script that was vetted, either.
After what Obama has been through with Wright and Warren, who could blame him?
“If the prayers must be vetted by a political staffer, that’s a sign to me that perhaps this is not the proper venue for a prayer. “
Bingo! I am so reminded of the parable of the pharisee and the publican.
way late to the party here. Oh well.
I get to open the state senate with a prayer in a week. Though I’d love to give them hell—mostly rethugs—I know better than to say anything that would embarrass my senator who is the one who recommended me for the gig.
I would think that any of us would have the same common sense.
why not just tell them “no thanks” it’s a political event?
To vet or not to vet – should not be the question. Rather, it is nobler to keep the religion out of politics and politics out of religion. Why not begin with the pledge of alligiance instead of a prayer?
This has been a good post to read. Don’t think a prayer is necessary, but a regular format is good to hang these events on. It is a way of bringing in local people as well. A song would be fine, most of us know most of God Bless America or O Beautiful for spacious skies and lets us stand and move about a bit. The pledge of allegiance and a song before the speeches seems adequate.
However if a prayer is wanted what if each event opened with the same prayer, or writing and were delivered by a local person? Persons asked to do so could accept or decline the honor, and it is an honor, and vetting would be eliminated. Also, control over length– good grief, maybe that is the reason for the vetting as much as for content! Haven’t you ever been blindsided by a 10 or 12 minute long prayer?
Or my other suggestion, have a designated prayer-giver travel with POTUS at all times– Michelle? Joe? one of his girls? or rotate it amongst the usual traveling companions? No vetting at all in this method.
I do like the first one. An appropriate prayer, of the perfect length and content, handed to the chosen lucky local for delivery, on a lovely vellum sheet, autographed by Obama and suitable for framing seems right to me. Saves the vetting part, still confers the honor and preserves the prayerful aspect.
What a fabulous idea! I love it. It could be more on the order of a general statement of good will without reference to any deity and still be called a prayer. Maybe a poem or something from the Buddhist tradition could be adapted so as to be inclusive of everyone, including non-believers.