My grandfather used to evoke the progression of “liars, damn liars, and politicians”: he was sure politicians were all opportunists out for their own gain. I, by contrast, am an optimist, so I suggest instead that they're just sheltered. The poor dears: they're so destructive because they really think the whole world is like what they know. Still, I think the jury is out whether it's opportunism or provincialism that's led to the House of Representatives' recent overwhelming vote to let chaplains--like the unrepentant lieutenant I wrote about in a previous column, “God and Caesar” -- pray in the name of Jesus in public, non-voluntary military ceremonies involving Soldiers, Sailors, or Marines of divergent faiths. The effect is to overthrow recent armed forces guidelines mandating generic prayers in public ceremonies (in church it's different, of course) and is a response to pressure from Christian fundamentalists.

At least that, according to the Washington Post article which is my source here (“House Injects Prayer into Defense Bill,” May 12, 2006), was the purpose of this small part of a much larger bill the House approved 396-31. Most of the bill was unrelated to this issue. It had to do with other things entirely that seem like good ideas to me: shifting monies to personnel to make sure our troops have what they need.

But that's the way politicians work. They insert something completely unrelated to the overall bill in and hope it passes on the coattails of the other, or perhaps isn't even noticed at all. That's how most of what we call “pork-barrel” projects get passed too: nobody would vote for a bill that was overtly about a “bridge to nowhere,” such as Alaska Representative Dan Young put into a transportation bill (he's chairman of the relevant committee) to benefit his home state back in 2003. If it's stuck in the middle of something (Young's boast was that the bill was “stuffed like a turkey” with bennies for Alaska), it just might get by. Young's did.

The House of Representatives is opportunistic in another way too. Frequently representatives think they can get brownie points with the people back home by voting for things that they know the Senate will probably defeat. They're irresponsible because they can be. Remains to be seen whether they're doing a good cop-bad cop thing on this proviso too.

My grandfather would undoubtedly say, they're just out for themselves. Probably they believe in Jesus themselves, and so they're using their power to make sure everybody else gets some Jesus too. This seems the gist of the position taken by Rep. Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC). The Post quotes him as saying: "I don't understand anyone being opposed to a chaplain having the freedom to pray to God in the way his conscience calls him to pray." Of course he knows whom he's trying to protect: chaplains like the lieutenant I wrote about who was slapped down for doing just this.

But the thing that stops me cold is this: Is he really so, um, sheltered (I don't like the word “dumb”) that he doesn't realize that's not the only thing such a bill allows? Which brings us to the second interpretation of what our lawmakers have been up to in amending these recently introduced armed forces rules -- namely, that they're not fundamentally opportunistic; they're clueless.

Belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of Mankind, and that belief in Jesus Christ is both necessary and sufficient to assure after-death salvation, is at the core of all varieties of Christianity. Thus by praying in the name of Jesus in a public ceremony (let's get this straight: the people there aren't going to church, where they presumably get what they came for, they're there to pay respects to a fallen comrade, or because their CO is on the way off to retirement in Florida) he's insisting on what makes his religion different from the other mainstream ones that the Soldiers, Sailors, or Marines are likely to be adherents of.

Now here's where things get rough -- follow me please carefully, Rep. Jones (in the highly unlikely event you're reading this -- I can dream, right?). If our fire-breathing old-time Christian lieutenant is free to espouse the things that make his own religion different from others, then so can chaplains of other faiths, too. If you clear the road for fundamentalists of the Christian sort, you also clear it for those of other sorts as well.

For instance, let's consider what a Muslim chaplain would, as a result of such a bill, be perfectly within his rights to say. The key doctrine that distinguishes Islam from the other “Religions of the Book” is the belief that “God is one,” which means, does not have a son. Jesus was a great prophet, according to Islam, but he (Christians would write: He) was not divine. Neither for that matter was the Prophet Mohammed divine. Divinely inspired, yes; divine, no.

Let's imagine Rep. Jones at the retirement ceremony of an officer who's earned the gratitude of his or her men and women, and the American people, for long years of service. This officer has asked the Muslim chaplain to officiate, perhaps because he's known to be a nice guy. Our imam takes advantage of the circumstances to pray in the name of “God, who is one, and who therefore, as the Holy Koran notes, could not have had a son.” Let's say he's a fundamentalist Muslim, too (that's not the same as: all Muslims). He quotes the Koran on the subject of how to treat infidels (smite them), and its more doctrinaire pronouncements about whether Muslims are to have Christians and Jews as friends (negatory, good buddy). Or the Rabbi, asked on another occasion to say a few words, delivers himself of some eye-rolling about the fact that Jesus was of course not the Messiah that the Jews are still waiting for, and expresses his personal resentment at the way Christians have taken over and usurped the true meaning of the Hebrew Bible (Christians call it the “Old Testament” -- for Jews there's nothing old about it).

Rep. Jones, sitting there hoping to pay your respects: are you still happy? Do you really not see any reason why in public, semi-mandatory official functions, we should not stick to what unites us rather than what separates us? Difficult as it is for me to believe this, I have to conclude it just never occurred to you that if Christians can push Christ then Muslims, Jews, or (perhaps soon) Wiccans can come on just as strong for their particular faith. And where's morale then? Unit cohesion? Mission?

I think my grandfather was wrong: Politicians aren't immoral opportunists; some are just hopelessly naive.