Monday, July 30, 2007
Editorial: Humble faith lost in public prayer
Montgomery County Supervisors adopted a flawed ordinance to open their meetings with prayers.
From the RoundTable blog
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The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors could have used some divine guidance before they voted to open future meetings with a prayer.
Supervisors tried very hard to add an inherently exclusionary activity to their agendas without stepping on people's rights. Their prayers will be non-sectarian and invoke something called the "American civil religion," whatever that is in a nation whose constitution separates secular government from religion.
Only Supervisor John Muffo, who cast the sole vote against the change, cared that supervisors would alienate some members of the community from their government.
Yet for all the tip-toeing, supervisors still flubbed the ordinance by giving the board chairman the power to direct supervisors, county officials and staff to perform the prayer or lead the moment of silence.
No doubt conscientious future chairmen will seek people of faith to shoulder that responsibility and will not direct a county staff member to engage in a religious practice with which she disagrees.
Then again, the current chairman clearly prefers a religious opening for the meeting no matter whom it excludes. Woe to the non-religious county employee asked by the chairman to lead the prayer. Stand by one's faith -- or lack thereof -- in defiance of the chairman or capitulate and not offend your boss.
We suspect the courts would not look too favorably on empowering a government agent to impose religion on subordinates or place them in the intractable position of saying no to it. Religion, after all, defines a protected employment class.
Then there's that whole separation of church and state thing. Funny how it keeps coming up.
The courts permit prayers before public meetings as a historic anachronism, a holdover from past practices. Not so in Montgomery County where the practice is new. There, supervisors want "to seek divine guidance for the Board of Supervisors before engaging in public business." Prayers shall, the ordinance dictates, be for supervisors' benefit only.
If that's the case, why don't the supervisors who want to pray do so individually and in private before meetings? Why the public display? Why, indeed, even base public policy on the divine? Aren't wisdom and the facts good enough?
If supervisors do not respect their non-religious constituents, at least they might draft a more reasonable policy so that no employee ever is caught between faith and a demanding chairman.
