I've seen all of these diaries admonishing the pick of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer, and to me, that is a minor part of a much bigger problem- mainly that prayers have no place in our government. Yes, I know it's a tradition to do things like inaugurate with prayers and open Congressional sessions with a prayer (from an official Chaplain no less), but that doesn't make it right.
This is supposed to be a secular country and certainly not supposed to be a Christian country, yet we still use pastors to bless our government and its officials. You can argue that this goes back to Washington himself who, if my memory serves, was even inaugurated with a prayer (although I can't find any text of it anywhere), but tradition doesn't make things right.
First of all, let's look at the text everyone is familiar with, from the First Amendment to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
Now I can see some of you arguing that it is not establishing religion because different pastors/ministers/priests/whatever are used and no single denomination is chosen. To me, that misses the point because it assumes that 'religion' means 'denomination.' To me, religion means, very simply, what the dictionary defines it as:
Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
For millions of atheists like myself, that belief is absent. Totally and completely. This is why when people argue that putting up the 10 Commandments isn't establishing a religion because only God is mentioned are just wrong. A mention of God is religion, like it or not.
There are even those who go so far as say that America is a Christian country, something which is not only untrue in principle, it is untrue in a legal sense.
In 1796, Congress passed and President Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli, making it law. This treaty specifically says:
[T]he Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion
Not in any sense. Again, NOT IN ANY SENSE.
So while people here have every right to be upset that Warren was chosen to lead the prayer, I think it is short-sighted. There shouldn't be a prayer said at any official government function because it goes against the very principles on which this country was founded.
Sadly, at this point, the Supreme Court disagrees with this view, saying in a 2005 case that it is not unconstitutional to have an inaugural prayer, but that doesn't mean it can't be challenged again and overturned. I think it's time to recognize all of the Americans who are non-Christian and even, like myself, non-religious and end this nonsense of blessing our Presidents. That's what you do to Kings and Queens and this is not a monarchy.
So, while I sympathize with the people who are very rightly upset with the choice of Rick Warren, I think that they fail to see the big picture here. It is religion's infiltration of our government which is stopping gay marriage, giving our children inadequate sex education, relying too heavily on faith-based charities, etc.
Finally, because I know someone out there will probably attack me as being anti-religious, I want to say that I have nothing against religious people. I just think that religion belongs in the church, not in the government. As Jefferson himself said in 1802:
I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.