I see there’s another uproar caused by religion leaking out of its home and intruding where it is explicitly unwelcome:
State Rep. Stephanie Borowicz was on the ninth “Jesus” of her opening prayer in the Pennsylvania statehouse when other lawmakers started to look uncomfortable.
Speaker Mike Turzai, a fellow Republican, glanced up — but Borowicz carried on, delivering a 100-second ceremonial invocation that some of her colleagues decried as an offensive, divisive and Islamophobic display shortly before the legislature swore in its first Muslim woman.
This is ridiculous, a clear abuse of a dubious privilege. If we’re going to have an Establishment Clause, we should simply eliminate opportunities to privilege religion in a governmental context, as this most certainly is.
But Borowicz has her defenders, including the prominent (but intellectually doubtful) Franklin Graham:
“She doesn’t need to apologize,” Graham wrote on Facebook. “We don’t change who we are or what we believe because someone who is present may believe differently than we believe. I know Stephanie Borowicz would appreciate your prayers and encouragement. I always appreciate anyone who has the guts to stand up for Jesus.”
So why didn’t she use her time to defend democracy? After all, the statehouse is not a church, it’s a place where governmental business in a democracy is conducted – and certainly over the last couple of years, it’s had its abusers. Where is her loyalty to the Constitution, Graham, if she has to use a government facility to promote her religious views?
And that last sentence is, of course, hysterical, the remark of a wannabe theocrat who has decided to don the hood of the victim in order to advance his cause. It’s quite shameful, backing someone illicitly using her governmental position to attack someone else’s religion. This is another reason not to accord Graham any respect.
