WASHINGTON (ABP) — A history-making prayer offered by a Hindu leader to open the Senate's July 12 session was reportedly interrupted by a group of Christian protesters.
Three observers in the Senate visitors' gallery reportedly attempted to shout down the prayer, offered by Rajan Zed. He is the director of interfaith relations for a Hindu temple in
Reno, Nev.
According to the Associated Press, Capitol police officers quickly arrested the protesters, allowing the prayer to proceed. It was the first time in Senate history that a Hindu had offered the opening prayer.
“We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven,” Zed said, according to the AP. “May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.”
Several news reports said the protesters called Zed's prayer “an abomination” and loudly prayed for forgiveness for the United States for violating its alleged Christian heritage.
According to the Senate chaplain's office, every session of the Senate since its founding has opened with a voluntary prayer. They are generally delivered by Senate Chaplain Barry Black, a Seventh-Day Adventist. But senators occasionally invite other clergy from their home states to deliver the prayer. Zed's appearance was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
While Zed's prayer was the first time a Hindu leader has opened the Senate in prayer, it was preceded by a Hindu prayer opening the House of Representatives in 2000. In addition, other non-Christian clergy and leaders — including rabbis and at least one Muslim clergyman — have opened Senate sessions in the past.
But Zed's appearance had been publicized previously by the Mississippi-based American Family Association. The conservative Christian group urged its supporters to contact their senators and protest the guest prayer, saying it would “be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto, ‘One Nation Under God.'”
But the director of one church-state separationist group said such rhetoric exposes the hypocrisy of the Religious Right.
“They say they want more religion in the public square, but it's clear they mean only their religion,” said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a statement released shortly after the disruption. “America is a land of extraordinary religious diversity, and the Religious Right just can't seem to accept that fact.”
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