I said:

“Jesus, as a Christian word, carries a presumption of sectarianism, whereas Allah, a term which can be used to refer to any God, carries no such presumption.”

You responded:

“No, it would never occur to you, or to Judge Hamilton, that even though “God” is, by itself, a generic term, and can be applied to most every religion, that the presence of a Christian minister in and of itself implies that the generic “God” referred to is the God of the Christian Bible, and is therefore impermissible.”

To which I responded:

“A prayer containing one of those words would have to be examined in order to see if it was sectarian.”

You dropped the “to see if it was sectarian” out of my quote, in order to make it seem like I was just saying the judge had to arbitrarily decide if it was OK. If you don’t know what sectarian means, that’s fine, just ask.

I’ll state again my response to your question about whether prayers mentioning “God” is OK, since you seem to have missed it the last few times I tried.

If the word God is used in a non-sectarian way (i.e. to refer to a generic deity) then it is permissible under case law. If, however, it is used in a sectarian way (i.e. to refer to the Christian God, or the Muslim God, or the Jewish God) then it is not permissible under the Establishment Clause.

This is also what Judge Hamilton says. I quote from his post-ruling memo, which you can find here: http://www.liberty.edu/media/9980/attachments/order_no_jesus_yes_allah_hamilton.pdf#page=16

“If those offering prayers in the Indiana House of Representatives choose to use the Arabic Allah, the Spanish Dios, the German Gott, the French Dieu, the Swedish Gud, the Greek Theos, the Hebrew Elohim, the Italian Dio, or any other language’s terms in addressing the God __who is the focus of the non-sectarian prayers__ contemplated in Marsh v. Chambers, the court sees little risk that the choice of language would advance a particular religion or disparage others. _If and when the prayer practices in the Indiana House of Representatives ever seem to be advancing Islam, an appropriate party can bring the problem to the attention of this or another court._”

So no, Hamilton did not say that prayers to the Muslim God are legal, or that prayers to a non-specific “God” are illegal. He stated that _all_ sectarian prayers in a state legislature are illegal, and found (on a finding of the facts) that the specific examples of prayers to “Allah” raised by the Speaker were non-sectarian in nature. Neither he nor I said that all prayers to Allah are fine or that all prayers to God are not. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit your conception of us both as terrorist-appeasing extremist liberals.

BTW, “Jesus Christ” means a lot of things to a lot of people. And it is no doubt uttered in every legislature every day, as a slur of exasperation or wonderment by some, as a prayer by others. So no, it is not by default Christian.

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(Mind you, this is only if you accept the premises of Judge Hamilton, which I don’t.)

“Mainstream Islamic law does not distinguish between “matters of church” and “matters of state”; the ulema function as both jurists and theologians.”

You can find plenty of other resources that make it clear that to be truly faithful in Islam requires acceptance of not just the religious teachings, but the legal and government aspects as well. They are inseparable. For that reason, it is dangerous to allow the PC interpretation that Islam is an innocuous religion whose practitioners have no aspirations to fundamentally alter our system of government.

Also, I did make a mistake in saying that “[Islam] has the destruction of the United States as a core tenet.” Of course, this is not a stated ‘tenet’ of Islam. However, if carried to its logical conclusion, the Islamization of the West will result in a tremendous upheaval in government, and therefore to the governed.

Of course, the Islamic Imam, and the practicing Muslim, do not do this; when they say “Allah”, it definitely only implies that some generic concept of some undefined supreme being is being considered, and is therefore perfectly fine. That is the only way Hamilton’s intellectually vacant opinion can be supported. And that, my friend, is utter horsehockey.

Also, he was not overturned by the Appeals Court based on that issue, just on standing, and that due to an intervening Supreme Court ruling. The 7th Circuit said that Hamilton’s ruling was completely in line with precedent.

Premise:

these elements are inseparable

I’m not sure if jwebb is right (it seems like there are plenty of Muslims who do not subscribe to strict Sharia Law, for example) but the conclusion is certainly wrong:

by providing a permissive environment for the establishment of Islam as a religion, the rest must by doctrine, follow.

I don’t know about you, but I will disassociate myself from anyone — or any site — in a split second which advocates the outright banning of any (non-cult) faith; even a faith with a large contingent of fanatics that we are currently warring with.

Maybe I just have an overly visceral response to the phrase “permissive environment for the establishment of… religion” (regardless of what that bit in the middle is).

Premise:

The doctrine of Islam has the destruction of the United States as a core tenet.

Well, that’s just wrong. It follows from the logical equivalent of the leftists saying that a doctrine of Conservatives is to bomb abortion clinics. Sure, lots of them want to destroy the U.S.; but that’s hardly in the Koran, so far as I know.

I tend to agree with the PC stuff — I think it is incredibly dangerous. However, the conclusion drawn was poorly worded enough to merit a challenge:

So, the first thing is to never, ever again think of Islam simply another religion.

No, not “simply another religion” — the religion of the people we are at war with. But in the context of this post, it IS a religion, and it’s important to remember that we are not at war with ALL of Islam, parts of Islam declared war on us (and we obliged).