Prayer in the City Council made the Fresno Bee, twice. The latest article just came out today. And apparently we’ve been linked to by PZ Myers, so hello to all the visiting Pharyngulites – if you ever drop by Fresno, join us for an event!
To quote part of the latest article:
City Attorney Jim Sanchez said his office will review those recordings before deciding how to respond.“We will attempt to ensure that we have extended an opportunity for all faiths to come forward and give an invocation,” he said.
Challenges to prayer in government settings are based in part on the First Amendment, which states the government cannot make any law that would “establish” an official religion or favor one religion over another, or over nonreligion.
A municipal law handbook from the League of California Cities notes that the Supreme Court’s 1983 decision allows a nondenominational invocation or moment of silence. But a state appeals court in 2002 ruled that a prayer mentioning Christ was still unconstitutional. That led some California cities to stop invocations or issue guidelines on their content.
Government bodies in the central San Joaquin Valley vary in how they handle the issue.
We at CVAAS are glad that Mr. Sanchez wishes to allow everyone to participate in the city invocations. But we have to wonder, how is such an invitation extended? The specifics of inviting someone to give an invocation do not seem to be clear. As of this writing, a search of the fresno.gov website did not turn up a process whereby the public is invited to give the invocation.
Simply, who has been invited to give the invocation? Obviously area mega-churches receive invitations somehow, but what about others? There are several thousand different religious organizations in the Fresno area – have they all received an invitation?
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” What this means is that if someone is to give a prayer – even if it is on government property – the government does not have the right to “issue guidelines on (the prayer’s) content.” To do so “prohibits the free exercise thereof”.
On the other hand, if the city allows sectarian prayer, then the government is ‘establishing a religion’, unless it encourages involvement from all of it’s citizens.
Clearly this is a fine line that the city must walk, and those of us in CVAAS understand this is difficult. We applaud the city of Clovis for finding a good solution to this problem.
We have been asked, “Why are you bringing up this issue now?” We must ask in return, when is the right time to do the right thing?
As always, we encourage all of our members and other readers to join us for a discussion at the Rational Valley forums.
