On November 20, the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to the Bakersfield City Council urging the council to cease hosting sectarian prayers.
According to the FFRF press release, this letter of complaint was sent to both the mayor and vice mayor of Bakersfield. According to the FFRF press release:
A review of the invocations, transcribed from September to November 2009, shows that all but one ended with specific references to Jesus Christ, “in Jesus’ name,” or “in your son’s name.” In one prayer, “Father,” “God,” or “Lord” was used 21 times.
You can read the letter of complaint here (link to PDF document). In this letter the FFRF says:
The Bakersfield City Council cannot, under current federal and state law, permit any prayers that contain references to an explicit deity. The prayers currently given during Council meetings impermissibly advance Christianity and lead a reasonable observer to believe that the Council is endorsing not only religion over nonreligion, but also Christianiaty over other faiths. Even though the Council may be permitted to engage in invocations prior to its meetings, this opportunity does not provide “license to advance its own religious views in preference to all others…”
The FFRF recently challenged the Lodi city council, and although they did not achieve their stated goal of removing sectarian prayers, they were able to get the Lodi Council to concede that minority religions and that people of no religion must also be given the chance to give non-sectarian invocations.
The controversy raised by the FFRF created interest in secular and skeptical thought, directly resulting in the formation of “Lodi United” by Lodi resident David Diskin. Further interest of a secular and skeptical nature may have contributed to the formation of the Stockton Area Atheists and Freethinkers.
Win or lose, a similar effort by the FFRF in Bakersfield will promote awareness of secular and skeptical thought. This is good news to those of us who realize that religious people do not, and can not speak for everyone in the Valley.
