Church & State

[gilana]

My choir just sang at the Somerville mayoral inauguration tonight. I first started to get a little uncomfortable at the invocation by Father David Doucet of Saint Benedict's Church. The administration of oaths, each concluding with "so help me G-d" made me wonder a little about the whole church and state issue. A duo sang "He Looked Beyond My Fault," which was beautifully sung, but I really didn't appreciate the bits about Jesus dying for our sins. There was a short respite from religion while the newly inaugurated officials made endless speeches, including Mayor Curtatone's speech on the value of diversity and integration in Somerville. Then the True Light Choir sang about Jesus Our King while the whole audience clapped along. This was followed by the coup de grace, a benediction by the pastor of the Evangelical Haitian Church of Somerville, which he got almost all the way through before mentioning Jesus. If my way out had not been blocked, I would have been out the door right then. I'm just furious.

I have nothing against religious music. I've sung Christian religious music myself, and enjoyed it a lot. But at an official city event, the message this sent to me was that Somerville is a Christian city and my beliefs are not welcome or respected. I'm planning to write a letter to the mayor as soon as I calm down enough to trust my judgment. Grrrrr.

Comments

[dpolicar]

some day, when you see me in person and aren't actively upset about this issue, you should ask me about the reply I almost posted here... :-)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

wow. that's lame of them.

"we honor diversity. we've got catholics *and* protestants!"

this is somerville. i want to see christians and jews and pagans and hardcore secular humanists all arguing together about assembly square. :-)

Your Judgement Is Just Fine

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

You are spot on hon. Wex says that the impression you picked up was what he got from living in Somerville, that itis an xtian town.

You go girl. Take that riteous indignation out them. Get up on your moral high ground and let them have it both barrels.

Your Judgement Is Just Fine

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

You are spot on hon. Wex says that the impression you picked up was what he got from living in Somerville, that it is an xtian town.

You go girl. Take that righteous indignation out them. Get up on your moral high ground and let them have it both barrels.

[motlei.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear you plan on sending a letter. I think it's outrageous to have what amounts to divine coronation in a secular assumption of civil leadership but as a curiousity I went to look up the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (http://www.state.ma.us/legis/const.htm). I'll get to the horror I found there in a moment, but I'd like to mention that all the US Constitution provides is that the federal gov't isn't going to pass any laws establishing or prohibiting the practice of religion. It was left to the individual states to do that. So, I took a gander at the Mass. Constitution... To say the least, I was shocked. Paragraph 3 of the preamble floored me and Article III kicked me while I was down there. I envy you with this opportunity, Gilly.

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

Paragraph 3 had me repeatedly checking to see if this was a parody constitution. Wow. At least Article III was replaced with something a little more reasonable

[gilana]

Thanks for pointing out the amendment -- the article itself had me pretty terrified there. Wonder if atheists are allowed citizenship in this fine state?

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

Well, you know how Osama bin Laden and his bunch are all godless atheists. :-)

Closer to the truth, I suppose people who belong to the same church do tend to avoid wars with each other. (Kinda like the McDonald's theory.) So the "we're all Protestants here" idea probably is good for domestic tranquility. It's not so good for international peace, though, I suspect.

[motlei.livejournal.com]

As a "godless atheist" I'd have to mention that even the Protestants can't get along with other Protestants... it's a pretty big umbrella really.

I actually managed to read the ammendment too, thank goodness, I knew it was there, but for some reason the feeling I still get is political sanctioning of Christianity and to heck with anything else.

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

I'm not really disagreeing, but I can't think of any wars between protest countries or parts of countries. I suppose that doesn't tell you anything about domestic civility, though, does it. Oh well.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Well, we certainly weren't welcome here at the founding of the state. If you notice, it specifies a Prtestant service. The Quakers were burned and hanged.

[tapuz.livejournal.com]

sigh.
It's also likely a political statement as part of the cultural reclaiming of the mayorship in the context of the continuing conflict between old and new Somerville. While often deeply connected, culture and religion are two separate things these days, just like church and state... Here's another "go you!"

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend that you write your alderman and city reps, and, especially, the Globe and Somerville Journal- you can send them all the same letter- the press you can send email to. Curatone is a young man (39), *highly* opinionated, and not particularly interested in what any of his constituents have to say, near as I can tell. The only way to get any attention paid to the issue is to get people other than him involved.

[gilana]

Do I write it as an open letter to Curtatone and cc the others? Where do I get addresses?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

No, you write it addressed to each person, and since you don't know how much say he had in how this ceremony was set up, how many years it's been going on like this, and who planned it, you may be better off making sure that while you make your point firmly that this is NOT OKAY, you don't make the person you are writing to assume the blame. You can make it their responsibility to change it, though. (This is not okay, and I'm counting on you to change it.) Obviously, with the newspapers you have to take a slightly different tone.

Oh, and with newspapers you have to be really quick- if the inageration was two weeks ago, they're not interested. you want letters@globe.com for the Globe, that's the only one I know off hand. townonline.com runs all the locals (it's a subsidary of the Herald, so you'll have a more right-leaning editor there). Front page of this week's townonline.com/somerville has a piece on the inaugeration, so you should definitely try them, anyway.

Go to http://www.ci.somerville.ma.us/ today and you'll see Curatone's picture with a caption that says "Dorothy Kelly Gay, Mayor" next to it! (and you can pull addresses for letter off that site). Go to "city hall" and then on the left navigation go to "alderman." Denise Provost is one of he Aldermen - At -Large (meaning she covers the whole city instead of just one district) and she's awesome (she may also be Jewish, but I'm not sure about that.) I would say she woudl be your best, most responsive person to write. I tried to find the City Council on that page and couldn't but you could even ask Denise - "this is an important issue for me, whom else would you recommend I contact?" and she'll help you. Also write the Alderman for your ward -www.wheredoivotema.com will tell you what that is. Oh, and this page, http://www.evergreen.edu/library/govdocs/salutations.html, will tell you how to properly address everyone.

I'd be interested in seeing the letter you compose. I wish I had been there so that I could write one myself.

Just curious...

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

What did your choir sing?

Re: Just curious...

[gilana]

We sang the National Anthem, a song called Dona Nobis Pacem (not the traditional setting, but the only words are Dona Nobis Pacem and Grant Us Peace; obviously it's G-d we're asking for peace, but at least we don't mention hm directly), and America the Beautiful.

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

Sigh... I wish I could say that this surprised me, but it does not... at least with this mayor. I started feeling alienated from him culturally this weekend with his proposed removal of the smoking ban before he was even enthroned inaugurated. :(

My heart goes out to you for having to suffer through all the Jebus stuff.