Your decision to pray — or not — is yours alone. Your faith is a matter for your dictates and conscience. God is as you see him, believe in him, or believed he has revealed himself to you. On this, the Constitution is sound and clear. And if your reason makes it clear to you there is no God, no one may gainsay you.
Should you wish to share your ‘thoughts and prayers’ on social media, no one has the right to tell you not to. Should victims of tragedies take comfort in the expression then I am glad they have the benefit of it.
Politicians however, are charged with a strictly secular responsibility. They must deal with problems. And gun violence is a problem unique to America in the developed world.
But Paul Ryan can’t grasp that. I don’t expect Sutherland Springs to actually change the arc of gun violence in the US any more than any previous massacre did. But Ryan doesn’t even pretend. This church slaughter is just one more opportunity for the right-wing to advance a cynical religious message and get some licks in on the ‘godless left’.
Ironically, Ryan took to the irreligious, FoxNews to whine:
“It’s disappointing, it’s sad, and this is what you’ll get from the far secular left. People who do not have faith don’t understand faith, I guess I’d have to say. And it is the right thing to do is to pray in moments like this, because you know what? Prayer works. And I know you believe that, and I believe that and when you hear the secular left doing this thing, it’s no wonder you have so much polarization and disunity in this country when people think like that.”
You cannot claim that ‘prayer works’ when the most religious country in the developed world has the vast majority of the first world’s gun deaths. If you want do something that works, stop praying, get your finger out and demand answers as to why a man who escaped from a mental health facility, who was convicted of beating his wife, who was dishonorable discharged from the military, could still buy a gun.
The NRA’s bootlickers say we don’t need new laws, we need to enforce the existing laws. OK. Then enforce them — and stop the feckless politicking.
It is unconscionable to turn your back on doing something to slow the needless slaughter of innocent Americans to instead launch a base-massaging political distraction on the role of prayer after tragedies.
If prayer were all that was needed, then churches, synagogues, and mosques are littered with people better equipped for the job. Religious leaders are trained in the art of solace and comfort. And well versed in 'explaining' the inexplicable.
And if some of the citizenry find their ministrations to be helpful after massacres then, dammit, let them minister away. But let politicians tend to their professional responsibilities.
Donald Trump isn’t alone in his drive to make America small again, he has the eager assistance of a lot of little men and women who point fingers instead of standing up.