With commencement season upon us, this story should stand as a reminder to those college officials who think everyone who goes to college is Christian.
For years now, southern California’s Saddleback Community College, a public school part of the South Orange County Community College District, has been offering up Christian prayers at annual scholarship award presentations, graduations and other events despite ongoing requests by students, faculty and members of the public that the prayers offend their religious beliefs.
Donald Wagner, president of the Board of Trustees, took offense to their offense. So, in response to the complaints, he threw what amounted to a public hissy fit cloaked as religious observance at the 2008 scholarship awards:
We take the opportunity today to offer our congratulations to the many students of Saddleback College who have worked so hard and achieved so much. Historically at events such as these we also take the opportunity to offer a moment of thanksgiving to God — if He exists. And I’m not here to say that He does. That would be wrong for an elected official, I am told. No matter that America’s founders invoked the name of God, and encouraged and participated in religious ceremonies in government facilities. No matter that the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens believe, or they have no objection to religious mention at public gatherings. No, no matter to the special interest group that has contacted this college to pursue its agenda of driving God from the public square. No matter to those too uncertain in the strength of their own views that they cannot abide any mention in public of the divine, and that would prefer instead to censor and silence free speech.
If you don’t believe in God, that’s fine. The government has no business trying to convince you otherwise. You’re welcome to sit down. We invited you to stand, but no one made you. But if you do believe, I would ask you, personally and not on behalf of the government, to take a moment to thank Him, for the many gifts you believe you have received from Him, including the opportunity to pursue an education in a country explicitly founded on the belief that we are endowed by our Creator with the gift of liberty. If you would, take that moment now, and then if you’re so inclined, say a simple “Amen.”
Here’s the video.
After years of college officials mocking their requests, Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit last year on behalf of eight professors and students. Three months before the suit was filed, President Wagner responded to the impending lawsuit by basically using a public invocation ceremony to say that anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist can go to hell.
From the initial complaint [.pdf]:
At the August 2009 Chancellor’s Opening Session, Wagner, acting as the District’s officer, agent, and official representative, invited the assembled faculty and staff to stand for an invocation “[i]n recognition of this country’s rich religious heritage.” Trustee Williams then declared: Before the invocation, I thought I’d tell a little Biblical story. Today’s story is about Jonah. In grade school one day, a little girl spoke to her teacher about Jonah and how he was swallowed by a whale. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though they’re a large mammal they have very small throats. The little girl said, “But how can that be? Jonah was swallowed by a whale, and the Bible says so.” Again the teacher said it’s physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human. Undaunted, the little girl said, “When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah.” To this the teacher replied, “What if Jonah has gone to hell?” The little girl replied, “Then you can ask him.”
Please join me in the invocation now.
The religious lecture was followed by the chancellor (Raghu P. Mathur) introducing a God Bless the USA presentation, which had photos of servicemen praying over Lee Greenwood’s uber-patriotic anthem “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Again, from the initial complaint:
The presentation concluded with two images of uniformed servicemembers carrying a flag-draped coffin, with superimposed text reading: Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you. Jesus Christ and the American G.I. One died for your soul, the other died for your freedom.
Nice, huh? I can imagine them chuckling to themselves over their oh-so-cleverness. Using a parable – and we know Jesus was all about parables – at a government-financed institution to illustrate that anyone who does not take the Bible literally is damned to hell.
According to news reports, David Llewellyn, a school attorney, said Saddleback intends to continue the invocations because they add dignity to the ceremonies and are an accepted part of American public life. Also, in court documents, the defendants argue:
To deprive our nation’s public colleges and universities of an important and long-standing unifying mechanism—a non-sectarian ceremonial invocation to solemnize and bring dignity to a significant college occasion, such as a graduation or scholarship ceremony—simply to accommodate a handful of college professors who disagree with that practice is unsupported in our country’s law or its history.
So it’s about the dignity, huh? And I love the comment under the above posted YouTube video by Epicrebt07: Nothing says “I’m secure in my beliefs” like a bitter, public diatribe.
On Wednesday, the court issued a ruling denying defendants’ motion to dismiss. A hearing to rule on a plaintiffs’ request for preliminary injunction to prevent the prayers at a May 21 scholarship ceremony is scheduled May 3.
