Judicial nominees..."judgment" or "agenda?"

On March 17, 2009 President Obama announced a nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. According to an article in the Baptist Press, the nominee- Hon. David Hamilton, has ruled previously on matters like "prayer in Jesus' Name."

The Seventh Circuit also reversed a 2005 opinion by Hamilton in which he
ruled prayers in the Indiana legislature could not use "Christ's name or
title or any other denominational appeal." Hamilton sided with the ACLU's
Indiana branch, which filed the lawsuit.

"All [ministers] are free to pray as they wish in their own houses of worship or in other settings," Hamilton wrote. "The individuals do not have a First Amendment
right, however, to use an official platform like the Speaker's podium at the
opening of a House session to express their own religious faiths."

As I read this, I was reminded of the tired analogy of the "frog in the kettle." Place a frog in boiling water and he will jump out. Place him in cold water and turn up the heat gradually...you can boil him alive.

There is a subtle but real effort in our culture to remove beliefs that serve as distinctions. For an evangelical, to pray in a Name other than Jesus is an afront on the conscience...and is a fundamental departure from the closely held beliefs of our Founding Fathers that the government would not be in the business of regulating religious activity. If it were a Jewish Rabbi or a Muslim Imam who was praying, I do not believe the government should regulate the content of their prayers either. To assert though that a religious leader should subscribe to the philosophical leanings of the government...like an employee to an employer...is to fundamentally undermine the principle of Separating Church and State.

Any nominee to an appointment in the Federal Judiciary should respect the founding tenets of our nation and not show a repeated and proven track record of judicial activism... especially when "said activism" seeks to impose views commensurate with a radical departure from those founding tenets. To nominate such a person speaks to the judgment and/or agenda of
the one nominating.