Rick Perry has proclaimed April 22-April 24 to be "Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas." (credit, move)

[lonestar2007]

Originally Posted by stan in san diego

Hope you guys do OK...fires are such nasty business. California is awash with snow and water. Our drought is long gone. But as you folks know, heavy moisture brings heavy vegetation which dries out...I guess you can be glad the fires aren't in or near large population centers. Good luck!

Thank you Stan in San Diego for your well wishes.

Thank you Reb & Matt for some rationality here. This forum can be the biggest downer at times! It seems like if one little thing isn't 100% down some peoples' alley, then the high handed criticism starts and all the sheep have to jump on the bandwagon.

Not too many people are a fan of Rick Perry. These wildfires are not about Rick Perry, they are about our beloved Texas and our fellow Texans who are directly involved. As to acting so silly about prayer, I say shame on you. This is a free country, you are free to pray or not pray and no one is going to be able to make you do otherwise, so why would you even attempt to make an issue out of it. I've been praying for the people who are losing everything to these fires. I cannot watch the news and listen to it without saying please God, help them. I don't know that it helps or doesn't help. I know I can't help myself from saying it everytime I think of them and I hope it will help.

It is strange to me that the very people who proclaim the loudest that there is no God, or God doesn't care what happens to me, etc. are the very ones who cry out the loudest to him when tragedy befalls them. I daresay, there's several people on this very forum that although they make light of prayer and God, would be right there crying Oh God, help me if they were standing in the middle of a wildfire.

As to Rick Perry's calling upon the federal government, why not? The federal government takes in plenty of Texas tax dollars and distributes them as they please. It would be foolish not to ask for some of our own money back in time of disaster. Plenty of it gets sent to some foreign country if they have a disaster. Geez!

As to the mention of volunteer fiefighters. These wildfires are raging in acres of cedar and dry underbrush. If you never seen cedar, mesquite, dry underbrush burn, then you should know it is an extremely HOT, HOT fire and then these fires are being fueled by extremely strong winds. So dangerous.

It is depressing that even in times of a natural tragedy the people of Texas can't come together, but instead bicker and make trival crap into a big damn deal. It's really very depressing. So about all I've got to say regarding it is this. The United States of America is a Christian nation regardless of what some people and even the president has to say about it and if our governor wants to ask the people of his state to pray for those who are losing everything they have to the raging fires, he can damn sure do it! You are free to do as you please and you can bellyache till the cows come home because every little thing 'offends' you. There's a lot of things that offend others, but to rant and rave over it is just asinine. Like it or not, this is a Christian nation, In God We Trust is on every U.S. greenback dollar you spend in this great country of ours for whatever pleasure you want to spend it on and if someone wants to pray to God for whatever reason you can scream your offense to the heavens, it doesn't matter one damn little bit. I just cannot believe how sick and tired of all this crap I am! Just really sick and flat tired of it!

[Westerner92]

The thing I find interesting is that, in my experience, it's really only athiests that get all up-in-arms about things like this, not the Jews, not the Muslims, not the Hindus, nor any other religious adherents. This suggests to me that those who push so hard for secularism are, in fact, athiests who like seeing their beliefs (or lack thereof) reflected in the government.

[doctorjef]

Westerner92, I think in this instance you are wrong, i.e. Perry declaring days of prayer for rain. Perry is such a demagogue and joke that his declaring these days of prayer can only be occasion for derision. Better if one or more groups of clergy representing major denominational jurisdictions in Texas had declared a day of prayer or authorised such prayer on a particular Sunday (or if this had been set before the end of Lent, it could have been on a Friday evening and covered many Christians as well as Jews and Muslims in terms of normal religious observance). Many past governors could also have done this without incurring the same derision, even though I'm a bit dubious on the whole proposition of a chief executive or the legislature in a secular republic engaging in such religous grandstanding. Oops - guess that makes me a secular liberal. Yet I just got back from Good Friday services a little while ago and will be at the Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter tomorrow evening -- go figure.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Westerner92, I think in this instance you are wrong, i.e. Perry declaring days of prayer for rain. Perry is such a demagogue and joke that his declaring these days of prayer can only be occasion for derision. Better if one or more groups of clergy representing major denominational jurisdictions in Texas had declared a day of prayer or authorised such prayer on a particular Sunday (or if this had been set before the end of Lent, it could have been on a Friday evening and covered many Christians as well as Jews and Muslims in terms of normal religious observance). Many past governors could also have done this without incurring the same derision, even though I'm a bit dubious on the whole proposition of a chief executive or the legislature in a secular republic engaging in such religous grandstanding. Oops - guess that makes me a secular liberal. Yet I just got back from Good Friday services a little while ago and will be at the Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter tomorrow evening -- go figure.

DocJ, the point is that EVERY executive from the mayor of a small burg in Grits, Mississippi, to the president of the United States has to power to declare proclamations. And all do with regularlity. I bet the cotton crop that if one googles how many proclamations were issued just today, one would be not able to read them in a month of Sundays. LOL

So, ok...Perry may well be a demogauge. Most politicians are. He sure isn't my favorite guy in the world. But that is not the REAL reason that so many are so up in arms about it. The real reason is that it mentioned *gasp* prayer and God. That aspect of it is just unacceptable to those out there who cannot tolerate ANYTHING which might have a connection with Christianity...even though in this case, it wasn't worded that way. It simply, over a Holy weekend, signed a simple proclamation praying (to whatever deity) for rain.

Grandstanding? I didn't see...although maybe I missed something...of Perry standing on the Capitol steps announcing all this to an audience. No, all he did was sign a proclomation...just as likely he did a dozen others in the last year or so. This one just happened to be the one that made headlines. It was an object of ridicule for that reason alone.

Am I right or wrong on that? Seriously.

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/proclamation/

[Westerner92]

You get no arguments from me, doctorjef. It's pretty obvious that Perry is just pandering to the religious right with his proclamation. I'd be surprised if he has any faith beyond power lust.

In a perfect world, such political grandstanding wouldn't occur and government and religion would never mix, but the fact is that this isn't hurting anything. People can only be offended if they choose to be, and the only ones who seem to be offended here are the same people who feel the need to belittle other faiths.

[portyhead24]

Let's go do a rain dance.

[die Eichkatze]

Originally Posted by getmeoutofhere

Any religion. Since it didn't specifically name a religion, it can squeak by, but what about people who don't believe in prayer at all?

It's setting himself up for a nice discrimination lawsuit.

Somebody already did this with the National Day of Prayer, and the 7th Circuit ruled against them....
Constitutional Law Prof Blog: Seventh Circuit Rules No Standing to Challenge Presidential National Day of Prayer Proclamation

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by lonestar2007

Thank you Stan in San Diego for your well wishes.

Thank you Reb & Matt for some rationality here. This forum can be the biggest downer at times! It seems like if one little thing isn't 100% down some peoples' alley, then the high handed criticism starts and all the sheep have to jump on the bandwagon.......

...I just cannot believe how sick and tired of all this crap I am! Just really sick and flat tired of it!

Great post ..and I tried to give you rep points for it, but you know how that crap goes, about having to spread it around, blah, blah, blah...

[doctorjef]

I'm afraid I find the attempt to insert religion into the state sphere very tiresome; partly because it ain't real religion. Rather, it's usually to make a political/ideological point. I agree that governors and other public chief execs sign prolcamations all the time, but that doesn't mean it's particularly wise to do so. It's a bit like legislatures wasting time on all manner of memorialisations - various nonbinding resolutions to honour this and that. Silly, really (at best). Maybe the bottom line in all this is that the governor of Texas has become an object of general derision and scepticism. If he weren't such an arse, very little notice would have been taken of this proclamation. The attack IMO isn't so much on the proclamation per se as this particular proclamation issued by this particular governor at this particular time in his political history -- it's all about context.

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by wehotex

I'm surprised that he hasn't come out and said that "the gays" have caused this drought.

Could be the work of Terror babies