Posted by
ClearCommentary.com on Monday, July 21, 2008 3:21:28 PM
One of the more loathsome hallmarks of political correctness is its insidious ability to work its way into our civic fabric at the local level. Because its adherents depend upon the concomitant of pre-emptive capitulation for its success, they have advanced their curious cause in ways never suspected just a decade ago.
Here in Colorado, in response to the Western Colorado Atheists' charge of breaching the Establishment clause of the First Amendment, the Grand Junction city council has conceded it may be breaking the law by not featuring a nearly limitless multiplicity of prayers in advance of their meetings.
In Colorado Springs, despite the fact that the city council has historically brought in a variety of ministers, as well as rabbis, and priests, it won't satisfy the likes of Becky Hale, a founding member of Freethinkers of Colorado Springs, who complained it's not "all-inclusive," noting that her organization hasn't been included in such efforts because "we're too controversial."
Not surprising, if they were included, she said they wouldn't call it a prayer--God forbid--but rather "a call for people to be their best human selves," a wonderfully secularized and effete assertion that would pointlessly expand the scope (and definition) well beyond the traditions of inter-denominational faiths. But, more critically, it's yet another example of the minority imposing itself on the majority, demanding equal accommodation regardless of whether they're 5 percent of the population or a tenth of one percent.
It also reflects a dim understanding of the First Amendment, which has suffered at the hands of the courts in recent decades, which provides such would-be challenges a wholly undeserved legitimacy. Indeed, inherent in all our rights is a presumption of reasonableness with respect to their interpretation and application. As such, inviting a variety of faiths to lead the prayer before a city council meeting ought to satisfy the clause's demand. Being forced, either by a de facto legal challenge, or the threat thereof, to include secular agencies would constitute a perversion of the process since they aren't truly praying.
However, that's the next logical step, and it would include everything from animal rights zealots to global warming extremists to champions of polygamy, exploiting their hour upon the stage for purely political reasons. None of this should surprise anyone who follows the aggrieved rights and victimhood pathologies that are rampant in America today, where the threat of lawsuits brings down traditions and reinterprets statutes in a conflagration of idiocy.
There's a silent but broad majority of Americans who are both tired and angry as they see their rights ignored and abused, as courts defend presumed victims and those feel their rights have been compromised. Thanks to the liberal establishment, which has seeded our public education system with its offspring and which has put our sensitivities on hair-trigger, we've become a nation of people who take offense at the slightest provocation, whether real or imagined.
It's transformed our civic landscape into a litigious place where trial lawyers and class actions propagate like fruit flies. Beyond the needless expense, this can't be healthy for our collective well-being because it creates challenges to our traditions based on an extremist view of our Constitution and statutes. But because our judges are reliable champions of creating legislation from the bench, they manufacture new law and rights on a daily basis, which only advances these ill-begotten causes and provides them with an unwarranted credibility.