Evangelical Christian finds himself against Pre-game Prayer.

[genie_weenie]

But only because the prayer was led by a member of a different faith!

From the Article:
Coming from a fairly traditional Southern upbringing, I was not at all initially surprised when a voice came over the PA and asked everyone to rise for the invocation. I had been through this same ritual at many other high-school events and thought nothing of it, so to our feet my wife and I stood, bowed our heads, and prepared to partake of the prayer. But to our extreme dismay, the clergyman who took the microphone and began to pray was not a Protestant minister or a Catholic priest, but a Buddhist priest who proceeded to offer up prayers and intonations to god-head figures that our tradition held to be pagan.

We were frozen in shock and incredulity! What to do? To continue to stand and observe this prayer would represent a betrayal of our own faith and imply the honoring of a pagan deity that was anathema to our beliefs.

...

I would say in love to my Christian brothers and sisters, before you yearn for the imposition of prayer and similar rituals in your public schools, you might consider attending a football game at Wahiawa High School. Because unless you're ready to endure the unwilling exposure of yourself and your children to those beliefs and practices that your own faith forswears, you have no right to insist that others sit in silence and complicity while you do the same to them.

Read more at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46828

Here's what PZ myers of Pharyngula had to say:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/even_wingnuts_respond_to_cultu.php#more

Edit: to be fair to the Writer of this letter I have included a portion of his final paragraph.

[rockymountaindem]

1. Well, maybe he'll understand now

when people who are not of his religion get upset when he's delivering some kind of prayer to a captive audience.

Edit:
Reading the article, I see that he does. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.

[peacebird]

2. gosh - I guess now he is beginning to understand how others feel

when forced to sit through Christian prayers.....

[rusty charly]

3. this is so conservative/rightwing

they can NEVER empathize with another viewpoint or life view. they never support any program until someone in their family needs it (i.e. stem cell and nancy reagan)

see? he's only coming around because he's personally been inconvenienced. this has nothing to do with right or wrong. it's all me me me.

they must experience it themselves or no one else needs it.

it's such a ridiculous way to live because there's no possible way to actually experience every life event to judge whether something's valid or legit.

the ability to step outside themselves and look at something objectively just doesn't exist.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. It Isn't That R/Wing Xians Just Want Civil Rights, They Want

After reading the World Net Daily article, I am again reminded that the hard-right so-called "Christian" leadership doesn't just want civil rights for Xians, but that they want "special rights" for their religion and their religious practices. While many of them will pretend to stand quiet for ritual prayers of, say, Roman Catholics and liturgical Christian sects, many of them want THEIR particular sects' practices imposed as the (wink wink) (nudge nudge) unofficial official religion, as well as carte blanche to bully minority Christian sects like Christian sects like Unitarianism and the LDS.

[patrice]

5. I just talked to someone who tried to tell me that you can't pray

in public school. I corrected him of course. Then he said religion isn't allowed in schools. I told him the schools would teach all religions if that's what people wanted.

It seemed kind of odd, because it was someone I would have thought knew the facts better. I think he might have been purposely mis-representing them for the "audience" we found ourselves in when this conversation came up.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. Well, a Christian who has finally managed to grasp the meaning of

"do unto others as you would have others do unto you". I'm amazed at the number of Christians who seem unable to grasp that basic precept of their own faith.

I'm glad to see something like this being published at that site. For a RW Christian reader who has never really had occasion to experience empathy, it kind of walks them through the process of experiencing things from a different perspective. It may end up helping alot of these people to see the issue in a way that would otherwise have never occured to them.

[neebob]

7. Oh, the horror

of having to stand and observe a prayer honoring a diety you don't believe in. Asshole.

He begins by saying he's not against the school letting his kids chase yours and mine around with Bibles. I wonder what it would take for him to change his mind about that.

[genie_weenie]

8. The thing about this article

which struck me the most was remembering my Marine Service time when the Company or Battalion would be addressed by the Chaplain.

One is stuck in the formation and thereby forced to hear the invocations despite one's beliefs. Fall out or Dismiss wasn't given until after the Ritual to the False Dying God...

[neebob]

9. The thing that struck me

is how it's so specific to pre-game prayers and carefully crafted and contrived to evoke a certain reaction from a certain audience. Guess what: I'm against prayers at football games! Be shocked! Weiners.

The other thing that struck me is the racist undertone.

[Book Lover]

10. Ha-ha! Now the rubber band is on the other claw!

(Please forgive my puerile ramblings - but I have wanted to use this quote and image for sooooo long)

[neebob]

11. Uh-oh, BMUS

The squid overlord has lobster claws.

[Book Lover]

12. So, now Zoidberg is big huh? That's more like it!