I am upset with what I saw in the Navy Times today.  Apparently some of the Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy feel that the noontime payer is “coercive.”  They contacted the ACLU and now has been blown way out of proportion.  Pardon me, but a speech done once a day to boost morale in one’s life doesn’t seem like anything that would offend anyone.  Yes, it is directed towards God, who not a lot of people believe in this day and age.

For one of the Midshipmen:

Over time, the officer’s feelings on the issue evolved. For her first two years at the school, she came to attention and pretended to pray. Only in the last two did she stand at parade rest and wait the prayers out.

“It became really frustrating to decide what to do, whether to play along or have to stand out,” she said. “I was worried that people would think differently of me if I chose not to participate. I have to imagine that there are a lot more midshipmen out there who won’t speak up for themselves because they don’t want to stand out.

“It is very naive to say you won’t be judged. Everybody can see you, and there is a lot of pressure to conform. There is a lot of peer pressure.”

What she did here was set herself up.  She made people believe that praying was okay and deep down she didn’t want to do it.  Had she been comfortable with herself and let people know what she really felt at the beginning, no doubt that anyone would have thought differently of her, except that it was not something she did and that’s how she was raised, and people have no choice to accept that.  The fact that she went along with it so that she not be looked at differently made her out to look like she didn’t respect the thought of her peers, and that they wouldn’t have respected her. More…