I dunno, I’m an atheist and I feel incredibly untizzified by the invokation of one or more dieties at a college gradutation. Heck, I can’t remember the speeches at my own college graduation, except that I found the valedictorian’s speech dull and was thinking that I could’ve given a much cooler, more relevant and more memorable address, if only I hadn’t been such a lousy student. The dean could have been up there talking about his latest golf game with Satan and I’d still be poking through the graduation booklet for grammatical errors, not paying attention in the slightest.
I don’t think this is like a kids’ birthday party, where if you invite one classmate you have to invite them all.
Assuming that it was constitutionally acceptable to have an invocation at all, and the citation above indicates that this is the case: then if you invite a priest, you should expect to get a Christian prayer.
If it wasn’t acceptable (for instance, if this was a High School gradution rather than a college) then it doesn’t matter how vaguely non-denominational or inter-denominational you make the prayer, or how many priests, ministers, rabbis, imams & shamans you invite – it’s still not constitutional.
I think I get it…the OP (if I may be so bold as to interpret your meaning) is surprised & startled that political correctness was not observed. That diversity was not celebrated. That they had an invocation that was specifically Christian, and said “too bad for the non-Christians…hope you liked it anyway.”
Come to think of it, I’m surprised too. Not often you see that, nowadays.
I can see the point that you cant have a menagerie of denominations, it would take for ever.
Either have some prayer or not, if that is the option I suppose then the question is which is more questionable morally: (a) offending someone’s faith (Since most religions state having other gods is blasphemy) in their God, or (b) not acknowledging the concept of divinity, which serves as a moral compass to so many people.