Update: According to this story, Senior Citizens, Inc., has backed down. Further details don't appear to be available right now. I'll be checking tomorrow. Hmm. Guess they couldn't find those "guidelines." Or they looked at them and said, "Oh. It doesn't actually say that."
Original Entry
What in tarnation is going on here?
At Ed Young Senior Citizens Center in Port Wentworth, Georgia, meals are provided a low cost to elderly visitors. The low cost is made possible by federal subsidies. The caterers of the meal noticed (I know that this will shock you) that people were praying out loud over their partially-federally-subsidized meals at the senior center and decided--you guessed it--that this violated the "separation of church and state." The elderly folks have been told that they may pray only silently over these meals, and a "moment of silence" is now being observed before meals while the matter is hashed out among the busybody meal contractors, the city attorney, and the mayor. (The elderly are generously permitted to pray mentally before the federally funded meals. Whoopee!)
Now, this is nuts. My local Catholic hospital receives (I'm sure of it) federal funds and broadcasts a prayer over the loudspeaker every morning at something like 8 a.m. I've heard it any number of times. Religiously based colleges receive federal funding indirectly through tuition grants, and they have chapel services, masses, and every other religious observation you can mention. Plus (ya think?) the students are allowed to pray out loud over their cafeteria meals.
On its face, it appears that Senior Citizens, Inc., is going over the top in its interpretation of so-called "federal guidelines." But then again, I don't want to jump to conclusions. What are these federal guidelines they are alluding to, and what makes them think that they forbid the recipients of the meals to pray out loud over them? Says the upset mayor, who "flirted" with discontinuing the contract but apparently decided not to do so, "[T]he best answer right now is that we're trying to get the best information possible and legal council is looking at what would happen if we continued to pray." Yeah, what would happen?
I'd love to see some investigative reporter actually ask Senior Citizens, Inc., to provide a copy of the "operational guidelines" they are citing and to publish the relevant part that supposedly means that old ladies can't pray out loud over their baked chicken.
But even if Senior Citizens, Inc., and the city attorney and mayor decide that the interpretation of the guidelines is wrong and allow the elderly to start praying out loud again, it is a bad, bad omen that this has happened.
HT: VFR
Comments (15)
When my daddy was in assisted living, no one began to eat until one of the residents had said grace out loud for the whole group. Horrors!
Posted by Beth Impson | May 10, 2010 12:30 PM
They may be interpreting the federal guidelines perfectly well.
Your counter-examples may not run so counter; they have obviously gained the upper hand in the nursing home (the people there are weak and easily handled)- invading the Catholic hospital may take more work, but wait until they feel up to it.
Posted by August | May 10, 2010 12:49 PM
For over two decades the Supreme Court has repeatedly reiterated that the Constitution and the applicable federal laws do not require or even permit this kind of nonsense. But we as a society simply cannot shake the perception created by the Warren Court and actively reinforced by secularists in all walks that the Constitution somehow prohibits individual religious acts. Nobody who knows what's going on is telling these people this; someone makes it up because he thinks he knows what's going on. Given how many lawyers we have in this country (would one of you out there like to retire so I can find a job? Thanks), you would think that people would actually get good legal advice---which would take about 30 seconds on this question---and not just pull something out of the air like this.
Posted by Titus | May 10, 2010 1:33 PM
What makes this case so bizarre is that the old folks in question are recipients of aid, and they are not requiring (or even requesting) that Senior Citizens, Inc. engage in any religious behavior whatsoever. If senior citizens want to pray over the food that's been delivered to them, by what principle could that possibly constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause? Would that not also mean that a meal bought with federal food stamps could not legally be prayed over, at least out loud, by the family eating it?
Posted by Sage McLaughlin | May 10, 2010 1:39 PM
Even by the "student-led prayer" standard of public schools, it would seem that so long as an official of the senior center is not leading the prayer, this would pass muster in a public high school!
The whole thing is crazy.
But it does occur to me that there might be some bureau who oversees these things that has written up "operational guideliness" open to this interpretation. These things are done so much by bureaucrats, and suppose that the guidelines said something like, "These meals cannot be served at any sectarian institution," the caterers might have interpreted it in this way.
They have to have something in mind. That's why it's so annoying that investigative reporting is more or less dead in this country. What would it have taken for the reporter to interview the Senior Citizens, Inc., official and ask for a copy of the guidelines he's going on about with the relevant section highlighted?
Posted by Lydia | May 10, 2010 3:15 PM
Lydia,
The problem is that if you break the guidelines the feds put out or especially break a federal law that means something to someone at the contracting office of the federal department in question, you may not only lose the contract on the spot, but never be able to even bid on work there again.
Posted by Mike T | May 10, 2010 3:35 PM
But we have yet even to see these guidelines, and since it appears that any such guideline or interpretation thereof that means this would go _way_ beyond any "establishment" jurisprudence (crazy as that jurisprudence is), they should be challenged one way or another. Remember that students in schools have challenged bans on student-led prayers on the grounds of their own freedom of religion. Senior Citizens, Inc., should be asked to bring forward the guidelines that they think have these implications. These should be put on the Internet and free discussion opened as to whether they mean that. If the guidelines themselves do appear to mean this, they are themselves far beyond the proper authority of the bureau in question, and a letter campaign should be begun to Congress, the President, and the bureau in question to revise the guidelines to respect the religious freedom of people receiving subsidized meals.
And meanwhile, the little old ladies should keep praying out loud over their baked chicken. I hope I would under those circumstances! Just think what the headline would look like:
"Caterer Takes Chicken from Senior Citizen for Praying"
Oh, by the way: I wonder if Senior Citizens, Inc., provides halal meals to "accommodate" Muslim old people. And if so, what would that mean? It's okay to pray over a federally funded chicken dinner at the slaughterhouse while its throat is cut but not after it's dead and on your plate? Please.
Posted by Lydia | May 10, 2010 4:20 PM
I thought the same thing. I can't imagine a worse P.R. hit for any charitable organization--"Yes, that's right, we took away the old people's food deliveries because they just wouldn't quit praying."
For the record, I frankly disbelieve that there is any federal guideline requiring that. I have seen too many times to count, in universities, transportation, and other areas receiving federal money, an administrator citing "guidelines" that turn out to be nothing more than his own private interpretation of what "the spirit of the law" requires. Which always, by happy coincidence, lines up with his personal feelings on the matter. Take the university administrators who routinely harass and deny accommodation to religious groups, supposedly under the rubric of a legally mandated separation of church and state. That those same people are viscerally hostile to the mission and orientation of Christian student groups is, we are told, quite unconnected from their campaign to deny them basic rights afforded every other student group.
I doubt that we will ever see any actual guideline presented publicly that remotely accommodates, much less positively demands, this absurdity.
Posted by Sage | May 10, 2010 6:42 PM
How about if they pray for gay marriage? Is that allowed? This is an experiment I would like to see.
Posted by The Deuce | May 10, 2010 7:21 PM
"How about if they pray for gay marriage? Is that allowed? This is an experiment I would like to see."
Of course they can. Individuals can pray silently or out loud, singly or in groups and on any topic they choose.
Posted by al | May 10, 2010 8:07 PM
Al, I hope you will write to Senior Citizens, Inc., and tell them this, doubtless citing the relevant case law to support your argument.
Posted by Lydia | May 10, 2010 8:15 PM
Oh hi there, Mr. Didn't Read The Article. How are you doing?
Posted by The Deuce | May 10, 2010 10:34 PM
I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall in whatever meeting it was where the SCI people changed their tune.
Posted by Lydia | May 10, 2010 10:39 PM
Toss the busybodies a curve, pray out loud while kneeling on a prayer rug, mumble Allah a couple of times, refer to infidels, ask where the nearest mosque is.
They'll build you one, then use it as you wish.
Oh, and remember to be nasty.
Posted by johnt | May 11, 2010 10:38 AM
"Oh hi there, Mr. Didn't Read The Article. How are you doing?"
???
"I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall in whatever meeting it was where the SCI people changed their tune."
Likely the city attorney explained the law; it's really clear but, for some reason, things like this seem to happen regularly. He was probably professional.
Posted by al | May 11, 2010 11:21 AM