Young Americans for Liberty – Ole Miss Chapter

The University of Mississippi’s student legislature, known as the Associated Student Body (ASB) Senate, meets weekly to draft policy recommendations for implementation within the University. Several ASB Senators are also active members of Young Americans for Liberty, and one of them recently took issue with the ASB’s practice of saying a Christian prayer prior to each session.

What follows is the text of Dan Blazo’s invocation before the Ole Miss ASB Senate:

” Please, keep your heads up and your eyes open.

I thought about giving an agnostic prayer tonight about how none of us know the answers to the big questions in life, but I realized that that would be wholly inappropriate.  In fact, it would be inappropriate for the same reasons that giving a Christian prayer would be.

As senators, each of us took an oath to uphold the ASB Constitution to the best of our abilities.  Accordingly, I’d like to direct your attention to Article 10, Section 7 of the ASB Constitution, which reads:

“The ASB shall not discriminate against any student based on race, gender, age, ethnicity, ability or disability, marital status, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, or national origin. Respect, tolerance, and goodwill are the keystones to enjoying the diversity of our campus, and it is the duty of the ASB to encourage and promote these ideals. The ASB is committed to achieving an intellectual, cultural, and social environment on campus in which all are free to think and make their contribution. We will achieve an environment in which every student may think, learn, and grow without prejudice, intimidation, and discrimination. We will achieve an environment in which personal dignity and respect for the individual are recognized by all students.”

So according to the Constitution, it is our duty to encourage and promote respect and tolerance among our constituents, who comprise a beautifully diverse group of young people with many ethnicities, philosophies, and religious beliefs, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Agnosticism, Atheism, Christianity, and probably others as well.  By praying to Jesus, we exclude all non-Christians from being represented by their government; we ostensibly represent only Christians.  How does that promote religious tolerance?  How is it respectful to our non-Christian constituents?

As representatives of a secular public university who would never trade our diverse community for one where everyone looks and talks and thinks more similarly, let us abstain from practicing any one religion at our Senate meetings.  Let us open our hearts to the welfare of all people within our community by respecting the inherent dignity of us all, recognizing that our differences of race, religion, and party affiliation are only superficial.

If you wish to pray out loud together before the meetings, that’s great!  I only ask that you do so on your own time.  How would you feel if your student government opened every meeting with a prayer to a god you don’t believe in (say Allah, Yahweh, Krishna, or Zeus), a god who claims that all Christians are destined for Hell?  Would you feel represented, or excluded and out of place?  Whether or not you want to admit it, the Ole Miss Rebels don’t all pray in Jesus’ name.  Our religious views are private matters.  Senate meetings are inherently public affairs.

Let us separate church and government by removing the invocation from the Senate meetings.  Let us remember that in the face of adversity, we need not close our eyes and look above for answers, but only recognize our own collaborative abilities to overcome any challenges that face us.

Thank you. “

Young Americans for Liberty salutes Senator Blazo for standing up for religious liberty.

“Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” – Thomas Jefferson, in Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802.

James Robertson currently attends the University of Mississippi, where he plans to receive degrees in Political Science and English. He is the President of the Ole Miss Chapter of Young Americans for Liberty.