COEUR d’ALENE – Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, said he tried to stop a Hindu invocation at the Senate opening today, but Senate leadership was allowing it anyway.
Senate Pro-Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, confirmed last week that Hindu statesman Rajan Zed will be giving the invocation this morning at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
His office re-confirmed Monday that the invocation would proceed despite some opposition.
Vick said he is opposed to the Hindu invocation because it undermines the Judeo-Christian basis upon which our society was built.
“Hindu is a much different society,” Vick said Monday. “I just don’t think we should go in that direction.”
Vick said he knows of other legislators who have complained about the invocation, but he may be the only one who protested the prayer publicly.
“I do know that there were numerous complaints,” he said. “I guess I’m the only one to do it publicly.”
Vick posted a comment on his Facebook page on Saturday, saying: “Extremely disappointed when I read this,” referencing the Coeur d’Alene Press story last week announcing the planned Hindu prayer. “It is interesting that as a Senator I have to learn about this from the newspaper. I am working to get it stopped. Contact your Senator and find out where they stand.”
A member of Sen. Hill’s office staff said they had received some complaints, but not very many on Monday.
Zed, who is no stranger to political controversy, has been giving Hindu invocations to political bodies for years. In July of 2007, Zed gave the first Hindu prayer ever to be heard in the United States Senate.
Three self-proclaimed “Christian patriots” were arrested for disrupting Congress during the invocation, when they started protesting and shouting: “This is an abomination.”
Ironically, that invocation also got some attention from Idaho’s former 1st District Congressman Bill Sali at the time.
Sali is one member of Congress who believed the prayer should have never been allowed, according to OneNewsNow.com.
“We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now: Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes – and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers,” Sali told media at the time.
Sali told the media America was built on Christian principles derived from scripture. He also said the only way the United States has been allowed to exist in a world that is so hostile to Christian principles is through “the protective hand of God.”
“You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike,” OneNewsNow.com reported.
Sali said the only way the U.S. can continue to survive is under that protective hand of God. He said when a Hindu prayer is offered, “that’s a different god” and that it “creates problems for the longevity of this country.”
Zed, who has written extensively on his websites about the relationship between politics and religion, could not be reached for comment Monday.