News came out of the Ohio Senate late last week that Senate Minority Leader Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo) was ousted from her post as Minority leader. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Fedor and Sen. Tom Roberts (D-Dayton), the No. 2 man in the Senate were removed by vote of the Senate Minority Caucus.

As we’ve noted in past articles (available here and here) Teresa Fedor has demonstrated that she is not exactly a clear or consistent thinker. She has also demonstrated that she is not above role playing to get something she wants. Her imitation of Capitan Louis Renault in Casablanca who was “Shocked! Shocked to find that there was gambling going on in this establishment” while poor Emil the croupier hands him a wad of bills and says “Your winnings, sir!” was classic. Indeed, Fedor was double-dealing enough and incompetent enough at it to draw attention from bloggers like us. We noticed the Teresa Fedor who was shocked to find strippers at a Democratic Party golf outing and politically savvy enough to offer a bill, weak as it was, to make an effort to stem the tide of human trafficking that is particularly bad in her district was the same Teresa Fedor who stood with and spoke at the “Dancers For Democracy” press conference at the kickoff of a petition drive to kill the Community Defense Act, that regulated adult businesses like strip clubs which are major centers for human trafficking. Sen. Fedor voted “no” on that bill.

As we noted in those earlier articles Fedor’s mock outrage was part of an effort to wrest control of the Lucas County Democratic Party away from one faction and replace it with her and Rep. Chris Redfern, a Democratic representative in the Ohio House, the Ohio Democratic Party Chairman and her ally’s, faction.

It appears to our jaundiced eye that there might be some payback with presidential election implications going on here with her replacement as minority leader by Columbus Senator Ray Miller. This looks a lot like a Clinton v. Obama internecine gang war, complete with political “hits.” It will be interesting to watch what happens to and around Chris Redfern in the next few weeks.

One of the political “hits” that took place showed that someone in the Democratic Party has some dirt on Sen. Ray Miller. It seems that, according to the Columbus Dispatch, Sen. Miller has not bothered to file several required campaign finance documents since 2002 and has not filed a completed report since 2005. The Dispatch also reports that Miller was convicted in 2005 of ethics violations, allowing state staffers to work on his private, non-profit company on state time and that he has owed the Hyatt Regency Columbus more than $26,000 since a fundraiser in 2006.

These facts were made available to the public only after Fedor and Roberts were ousted from their posts. It is interesting to note that as soon as these facts came to light, Fedor and Roberts, who were allowed to “resign” from their leadership positions by letter to the Senate President, immediately rescinded those resignations. That required that the minority caucus then officially fire them. It also demonstrates that Fedor and Roberts thought that reports of Miller’s corruption in the media might be enough to scare the caucus into taking them back as the best available, but in this they miscalculated the minority caucus’s ability to stifle their collective gag reflex. It also demonstrates that the Democratic party is willing to go with virtually ANYONE, crooked though they may be, they believe will help win Ohio for their party in 2008.

Don’t get too smug about this, Republicans. Your own incompetence has been showing since at least the Voinovich administration.

There are just some things that are guaranteed in life. Death and taxes are two that come to mind frequently. Another one, just as guaranteed, is that some anti-Christian group will raise a fuss about someone displaying a crèche or praying in public using the “J-word”. Sure enough, one of our favorite “religious liberties” groups has been kind enough not to disappoint this year.

The Board of Commissioners in Delaware County has been notified by the good folks and true at “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” that they are being terribly un-American in how they conduct their business. This group, headed by the Reverend Barry Lynn, has been sending letters to many governmental bodies in an attempt to muzzle elected officials from offering invocations before legislative sessions. The letter sent to Commissioners Glenn Evans, Kris Jordan and James Ward warn that Americans United expects a reply within 30 days of the letter, dated December 10.

Reading into this “threat letter” is not very difficult. While couching their iron fist in a velvet glove, feigning their undying devotion to upholding the Constitutional rights of all, the joyless Grinches at AU in essence telegraph their message that uttering a prayer in public by an elected official should be verboten.

They first claim that there is a constitutional requirement to keep prayers nonsectarian, which is not true, misquoting a key US Supreme Court decision Marsh v. Chambers which rejected a challenge brought against the practice of opening legislative sessions with a prayer from a chaplain paid for by taxpayer dollars. Playing the old game of only telling a partial truth, AU leaves out two pertinent parts of the decision, one that shows that the majority opinion was favorable to the idea of prayer as a part of a legislative session, and another that specifically spoke to the fact that the concern was to the context, not the content of the prayer.

Indeed, in Marsh, one finds this from the opinion: “The opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country. From colonial times through the founding of the Republic and ever since, the practice of legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom.”

Then AU’s crack team of religious liberty defenders say that what they really want is the elimination of all future prayers by the commissioners, and say as much in their letter. I must assume that in their burning desire to read into the First Amendment something that is not there, they also selectively ignore the unambiguous clause in that particular text that directly prohibits the abridgement of the freedom of speech.

Obviously, Americans United needs a refresher course in American history, not to mention in reading the Constitution of the United States. Legislative sessions at the national, state and local levels have been opened by invocations and asking of favor from God since our first assemblies in the Colonies. Even our Continental Congress in 1774 began with a three hour prayer session led by the Reverend Jacob Duche. Indeed, the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights left local governments free to address the issue of faith in government, as the First Amendment restricts the ability of the federal Congress to make a law respecting an “establishment of religion”, and the Tenth Amendment reserves rights not specifically delegated to the federal government to the states or to the people.

Maybe someday (and no, I’m not holding my breath) the valiant defenders of liberty at Americans United for Separation of Church and State will realize that in order to preserve religious liberties, one cannot target Christianity for elimination. Until then, we will just have to be prepared for the annual drive-by.