If Professor Lund said, "someone in the government (whether the courts or
otherwise) will have to decide what gets said and who gets to say it," then if
logically the more powerful half of government gets to dictate and limit the
content of religious speech by the lesser half of the government.
If that's true, why doesn't the Democrat majority simply outlaw speeches by
the Republican minority in Congress?
By dictating the acceptable content of religious speech by the Christian
minority, the non-sectarian majority causes great jealousy, and the urge to
mobilize Christians to vote them out.
Like we just did in Baker City, Oregon, here, and below:
http://www.persuade.tv/Frenzy13/BakerCityPrayerVictory23Jul08.pdf
In Jesus,
Chaplain K.
Council decides prayers will continue
Published: July 23, 2008
By MIKE FERGUSON
Baker City Herald
The prospect of taking away the prayer that opens many Baker
City Council meetings, it turns out, never had a prayer.
Speaker after speaker urged city councilors Tuesday to keep
the prayer as part of city council meetings and not to refer the
matter to voters. In the end, councilors voted unanimously to
remove the word "non-sectarian" from the council's five
"Invocation Guidelines" and determined by consensus not to
send the issue to the November ballot.
Roger Scovil, pastor of the Baker City Christian Church, said
that prayer is important in every aspect of human activity "and
that certainly includes the human activity of government."
"Prayer is the sacred opportunity to call upon the creator of all
things, the God of the Holy Bible," Scovil said. "God establishes
all governments, and honors and blesses the governments that
look to him for protection."
Noting that the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate both
open their sessions with prayers, Scovil paraphrased Benjamin
Franklin when, he said, a similar debate raged during the
founding of the republic: "Do we imagine we no longer need
God's assistance?"
"You invite people to pray according to their conscience, in the
way we are instructed," he said. "A Muslim will pray in the
name of Allah, a Buddhist according to the teachings of
Buddha. I won't feel excluded if you invite people of other
beliefs to pray at this meeting.
"In the name of freedom," Scovil said just before a loud
ovation, "allow people to pray according to the teachings of
their faith and their conscience."
Don Williams said he worried that instructing people how to
pray would "make God generic, a meaningless and uninvited
guest to this forum."
Even allowing sectarian prayers, he said, shows "a broad
tolerance of what this country is about."
"You have been very tolerant of all prayers, and now you're
being asked to be intolerant," Williams said.
He warned that if councilors give up the practice of opening
meetings with prayer, churches would stop entering floats in
parades and offering Easter sunrise services in public parks.
Bill Harvey, who lives in Haines but owns a Baker City
construction business, called it "a joy" to pray for "wisdom,
guidance, strength and help."
"I am human, and I can't make all the decisions on my own,"
he said. "I am sure tonight that many are praying for our city."
Gary Dielman, who sparked Tuesday's discussion when he
criticized a prayer offered by Bob Vanderbilt to open the July 8
City Council meeting —Vanderbilt closed his prayer with the
words "In Jesus' name, amen," — did not attend Tuesday's
meeting.
Dielman declined to comment until he'd heard a tape of
Tuesday's meeting.
Councilor Terry Schumacher said he hoped Dielman would take
the hint from the outpouring of public support for prayer at
council meetings "and quit coming back and doing this."
But Councilor Beverly Calder said that dissent is "an American
right" and "quite often represents other unspoken voices."
Councilor Andrew Bryan was one of the few who "saw the logic"
of putting a charter change on the ballot to let voters decide
whether to include prayer and the reciting of the Pledge of
Allegiance on City Council meeting agendas.
"If we want an invocation and the Pledge, we want to set it on
the hardest rock we have," he said. "If people really want the
invocation and Pledge, the best way to assure that is to put it
in the charter."
"You can put it in the charter or paint it on a wall," countered
Councilor Dennis Dorrah. "That still won't change Mr. Dielman
or someone else coming in here and raising heck about it."
At least the issue drew a crowd to Tuesday night's meeting,
Calder noted.
"You came because this matter is important to you," she told
the full house. "It's nice to have full council chambers. I wish
we could have something this meaty at every meeting."
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