[chrisinhouston]

This is my new state senator! He has also offered to buy babies for $500 from any women thinking about abortion. While some would argue that in most Muslim countries prayers by anyone from another religion would just not happen, I for one believe if we had more tolerance we would all be better off and it could just as well start here and hopefully spread.

Patrick boycotts prayer, praises religious freedom


Republican Sen. Dan Patrick on Wednesday boycotted the first prayer delivered in the Texas Senate by a Muslim cleric, and then praised religious tolerance and freedom of speech in an address at the end of the day's session.

"I think that it's important that we are tolerant as a people of all faiths, but that doesn't mean we have to endorse all faiths, and that was my decision," he said later. "I surely believe that everyone should have the right to speak, but I didn't want my attendance on the floor to appear that I was endorsing that."

Patrick, a conservative radio talk show host from Houston and self-professed Christian, said he wasn't the only senator to miss the invocation — in English and song — by the Imam Yusuf Kavakci of the Dallas Central Mosque.

But he was the only senator known to have passed out to other senators copies of a two-year-old newspaper editorial criticizing Kavakci for publicly praising two radical Islamists.

Patrick's political ally, Harris County Republican Chairman Jared Woodfill, had sharply criticized the fact that the Muslim prayer was scheduled during the week before Easter.

The timing was coincidental, said Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, who sponsored the cleric's appearance at the Capitol on the Texas Muslims Legislative Day. Shapiro is Jewish, and this also is Passover, a major Jewish holiday.

Shapiro praised Kavakci's "extensive interfaith experience" and said he represents a "substantial constituency of Texans who deserve to be represented." She said she checked out his reputation with the Anti-Defamation League and other groups to "make sure he was not somebody I would be embarrassed by."

Shapiro said she never leaves the floor when Christian ministers deliver an invocation "in Jesus' name" and doesn't consider her presence an endorsement of Christianity.

"I have a great respect for Christianity. I have a great respect for anyone who comes and prays. That's what this country was based on, its freedom of religion," she said.

Then, Patrick took the floor on a point of personal privilege and kept his Senate colleagues at their desks before the extra-long Easter weekend to share the important lesson he learned from the prayer he skipped.

Patrick explained that American soldiers, he understands now, aren’t “fighting just for Christians, they’re not fighting just for Jews or just for Muslims. They’re fighting for every American.” His newfound insight continued. “At the same time, I think about how the world looks at us, and they must be confused. We’re a nation that is so tolerant of others, we bend over backwards to allow others to pray as they wish, to dream as they wish, to speak as they wish.”

“We are a nation that allows a Muslim to come in with a Koran, but doesn’t allow a Christian to take a Bible to school,” he said. “The world must be puzzled of those Americans. But I’m not.”

“We are a Judeo-Christian nation,” Patrick said, pausing for a second before adding, “primarily a Christian nation.”

Patrick’s soliloquy appeared to be a paen to religious freedom. Or perhaps his freedom to protest religious freedom. Or perhaps his freedom to learn to understand religious freedom by protesting religious freedom. But at least he was polite.

"In many parts of the world, I know that Jews or Christians would not be given that same right, that same freedom," he said.

"The imam that was here today, he was fortunate to be in this great country."