Not a tough call for me. I'm with Lizzie and Nickhere on this one, and with Kendall and Mr. Voice-of-Reason himself, Kevin McGrath.

The nurse wasn't proseltyzing; she simply offered to pray, and she did take "no" for an answer.

I suppose that some would make it illegal to even admit that one has religious beliefs; even though my own beliefs are unconventional and complicated, I think it's important to resist that kind of tyranny.

This woman is having her livlihood taken away from here for the most specious of reasons. No one was hurt, no one was even offended; the observation that someone might have been offended seems to have been sufficient reason to discipline the nurse.

"Christianity" has nothing to do with this, and the nurse's membership in a particular (Baptisdt) denomination even less. No one religion has a monopoly on prayer. Jewish people pray too, and I think we all know that Muslims pray longer and louder and more ostantaciously than anyone else. I'll gladly accept anyone's prayers, nomatter how bizarre their belief system might seem to me. Certainly, if any God exists, there's only One ~ and no one could possibly be any better at understanding the silly differences of belief among humans.

When a dozen fundagelicals showed up at my house with chainsaws a couple of months after Katrina, and proceeded to help me cut up and dispose of a ton or so of fallen tree limbs, I didn't hesitate to join in with them at the completion of the job when they wanted to stand in a circle, hold hands, and pray. Not my style nor my usual practice, and I could have said "no" if it was all that important to me to maintain my agnostic cool. But that would not have been very gracious of me, would it have?