Ok...hypothetically:
Lets say that Dearborn Michigan elected a city council that reflected a large portion of the Arab, and Muslim population.
Lets say that they opened their city council meetings with prayers from the community, and pre approved by default based on the rule of law, a pastor that is the leader of a church, in the Dearborn community that has openly called for genocide of every Muslim on the planet to pray at a city council meeting.
People, or course are outraged, but the council admits that, even though they don’t like it, according to the law of the land, the citizens of Dearborn have to bite the bullet in order to protect the integrity of religious expression for everyone else. In other words, if we let god in the building, we have to let the devil in too.
Now council members are getting hammered in e-mails and phone calls and other protests against the admittedly vile and hateful rhetoric this pastor and his church, located in the city of Dearborn, had been preaching against Muslims, who simply do not want this man praying in their council meeting, so to save their asses, the council members, in an emergency meeting, put on the agenda at the next council meeting, and invite the public to speak, a measure that will only allow people who live in Dearborn to give the opening prayer, and those people could only be picked from a list of ‘pre approved religious leaders, by a majority of city council members. Of course, the law, if approved will go into effect in 24 hours after it is passed, specifically to prevent the pastor from praying.
Question: is the integrity of the freedom of religion in the law more important than letting a man have a voice in a government meeting who advocates the genocide of a part of that community?
My hypothetical is loosely based on a real story, happening in Phoenix right now. Please read below.
www.azcentral.com/...