Religion has no part in these ceremonies - unless it is remembered that millions of men were sent to their deaths at the behest of priests who told them they were fightingg god's fight and they had god on their side (someone should write a song).
500.000 Sikhs and Muslims fought in W.W.1. and millions who died were atheists, yet they are excluded from this Christian/Politician backslapping exercise.
There is nothing whatever extreme in find this 'private club' attitude objectionable - and all the press has carried reports of objections to it over the last few years.
Yet the Christians doggedly hang onto it as theirs.
Jim Carroll