A favored religion

A newly appointed federal judge President Obama named to the Seventh Circuit isn’t getting much media scrutiny for a controversial ruling he made that, effectively, makes prayers to Allah politically correct and perfectly acceptable in the public square, but not prayers invoking the name of Jesus Christ.

Heard about this?

In 2005, in Hinrichs v. Bosma, federal district judge (and now Seventh Circuit nominee) [now confirmed] David Hamilton enjoined the Speaker of Indiana’s House of Representatives from permitting “sectarian” prayers to be offered as part of that body’s official proceedings.  In so doing, Hamilton adopted one reasonable construction—though not the only one available—of the Supreme Court’s messy Establishment Clause rulings.

However…

One peculiar aspect of Hamilton’s ruling is how he drew the line between “sectarian” and “non-sectarian” prayers.  On the one hand, Hamilton made clear that prayers that “use Christ’s name or title” are sectarian.  On the other hand, he ruled (on a post-judgment motion) that it is presumptively not sectarian for a Muslim imam to offer a prayer to “Allah”.

So now he’s confirmed, and Newsweek did a misleading article about some criticism of Hamilton (no surprise there, Newsweek has lost its…..standards), and Ed Whelan does a follow up.

Hamilton, in responding to a query from the Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives whether “a Muslim imam may offer a prayer addressed to ‘Allah,’” wrote that he saw “little risk that the choice of language would advance a particular religion or disparage others.”  Hamilton’s position that such a prayer would be nonsectarian makes little sense…

But he gets a boost when media coverage like the selectively written Newsweek piece omits

passages that amply warrant the concern of [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich and other critics that Hamilton was engaging in an act of politically correct favoritism of Islam over Christianity in the public square.

And this is all supposed to be about tolerance.