Source: Star Tribune
On January 29, 2001, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a commentary by Alan Dershowitz on Franklin Graham's dedication of Bush's inauguration to Jesus Christ. Graham's "particularistic and parochial language," claimed Dershowitz, "excluded tens of millions of American Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, agnostics and atheists from his blessing...The plain message conveyed by the new administration is that Bush's America is a Christian nation, and that non-Christians are welcome into the tent so long as they agree to accept their status as a tolerated minority rather than as fully equal citizens." Graham's blessing of the inauguration defied the Constitution, he said, which says "there can be no official sectarian prayer." Dershowitz compared the blessing at Bush's inauguration to school prayers: both force people who do not follow the same religious tradition invoked by the prayer to choose to either participate and "violate their conscience" or abstain and "stand out as different."