Date: Sun, 28 Jan 96 00:10 EST
From: lmrutt@postoffice.ptd.net (Laura, The Peoples Alliance ) (by way of Maggie Heineman <maggie@critpath.org>)
Subject: FW: Fwd: Guest chaplain in Kansas House delivers imprecatory 
  prayer


>
>Forwarded message:
>Subj:    Guest chaplain in Kansas House delivers imprecatory prayer
>Date:    96-01-24 11:00:38 EST
>From:    OzActivist
>
>"He made everybody mad" --Jim Long, D-Kansas City
>
>"It definitely wasn't a politically correct prayer" House Speaker Tim
>Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs
>
>The radical right seized control of the Kansas House and many other
>legislative bodies in 1994. Tim Shallenburger replaced a moderate as GOP
>speaker and immediately installed a Topeka minister who offended 
>nonChristian
>members by refusing to pray ecumenically. Those complaining were told that
>they could invite guest chaplains from time to time to make the environment
>more inclusive. Not so, said the chaplain, Rev Washington, "I am the gate
>keeper and will decide who can be a guest chaplain. God tells me who to
>choose."
>
>So it was that Tuesday, Rev Joe Wright of Wichita offended even more people
>with a prayer that sounded like a Pat Buchanan or Bob Dornan stump speech.
>"We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We have
>rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and 
>called
>it choice." were among the most offensive parts of the prayer. House 
>minority
>leader Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, pointed to it as more proof that radical
>theocrats had seized control of the GOP caucus. In response, at least one
>Republican scorned the Democratic protests as politically motivated.
>  One Democrat walked out in protest during the prayer and three others made
>brief floor remarks condemning it.
>
> Rev Wright was invited by Anthony Powell, R-Wichita, who attends Wright's
>2500-member Central Christian Church. The church is one of the religious
>right superchurches that helped take control of Kansas politics, starting
>with Wichita, in the wake of 1991 mass demonstrations against a Wichita
>abortion clinic. The "Summer of Mercy" drew national attention.
>
>Comments:Speaker Shallenburger (913) 296-2302
>                 Minority Leader Sawyer (913) 296-7630
>                 Rep. Anthony Powell  (913) 296-7694
>
>

Laura Montgomery Rutt
The Peoples Alliance for Tolerance and Freedom
Board Member, The Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy
Lancaster, PA

- "You know you have created God in your own image, when you find that your God
hates the same people you do."   --anonymous