~~@Com~~
On the net Since 1994

email

Governmental Prayer

   

Opponents Getting Ready to Fight Prayer With Prayer
BY MARK EDDINGTON

The Salt Lake Tribune

Wednesday, February 7, 2001
      Father in Heaven . . . Hail Mary . . . Amen.
    Such words are common in prayer. But they represent uncommon ammunition for opponents of invocations at Utah government gatherings. And with the Salt Lake County Council's recent 6-3 vote to resurrect prayer at its meetings, critics have plenty of explosive ordnance at their disposal.


    "We haven't decided what we're going to do yet," Chris Allen, head of Utah Atheists, said Tuesday.

    But Allen and other members of his nonbeliever brigade had plenty of ideas at the meeting they convened Sunday at Salt Lake City's Encore Grill. Chief among them: Recruit volunteers to offer the kind of prayers that might give county leaders second thoughts about beginning meetings with invocations.

    Satanists, druids and pagans top Utah Atheists' list of prayer candidates. In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, Allen wants to enlist a member of the American Indian Peyote cult.

    "The County Council should pass the peace pipe amongst themselves," Allen said. "It's amazing what groups we have here . . . that would be considered pagan."

    What's more, Allen insists he is not blowing smoke. He said he has tracked down one Satanist who did not have the courage to be the guinea pig for the group's prayer challenge. But the group already has contacts with plenty more representatives of the heathen horde.


    And Salt Lake County might not be the sole beneficiary. The group wants to spread around their handpicked supplicants -- to civic meetings in South Salt Lake, Murray and possibly even the Legislature. If that is not enough to haunt Utah's praying politicians, Salt Lake City civil-rights attorney Brian Barnard is raising the specter of Tom Snyder.   Continue 

     Specifically, he wants to revive the mocking prayer Snyder had hoped to offer at a Murray City Council meeting in 1994. The city refused and a federal court upheld that decision, but the jury is still out on the issue in state court. Barnard wants to give his client's prayer -- addressed to "Mother in Heaven" and filled with damning rhetoric about self- righteous and self- serving politicians - - another chance in a new venue.

    Perhaps in Salt Lake County. Indeed, Barnard views the County Council's vote on prayer as a heaven-sent opportunity.


    "God works in mysterious ways," he quipped.

    If Allen and Barnard carry out their plans, Salt Lake County officials may elect to throw the rule book at them. Councilmen David Wilde and Steve Harmsen are drafting a prayer policy [emphasis, ED.] they hope will promote diversity while maintaining order and decorum. The county may anoint a prayer coordinator whose job will be to select people to pray and teach them the legally correct method of offering invocations.

    What about Satanists?

    "The purpose of prayer is to be uplifting," Harmsen said. "If the stated objective of a group is to be divisive, we'll probably give them that opportunity. But I don't think we would roll out the welcome mat for them."

    Harmsen said the council is united in its resolve that prayer-givers be a diverse bunch.


    South Salt Lake City Council members are equally committed to diversity, which is why they are slated to review their prayer policy at a work session tonight.


    e-mail: meddington@sltrib.com

 Reprinted with permission. Original article from Feb 7, 2001 is at 
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,250009169,00.html?

 

 

 

Judge Dismisses Murray Prayer Suit
BY STEPHEN HUNT 

The Salt Lake Tribune

February 15, 2001
      Seven years after it began, Tom Snyder's quest to pray to his "Mother who art in heaven" at a Murray City Council meeting has reached the doorstep of the Utah Supreme Court.

    In a decision released this week, 3rd District Judge Stephen Henriod ruled against Snyder, saying his proposed statement was "not a prayer" and was "clearly nonreligious."

    Snyder now will appeal to the state's highest court, the latest move in his lengthy legal battle. A federal judge first dismissed Snyder's lawsuit against the city of Murray, a decision upheld in 1998 by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his
appeal, Snyder refiled his lawsuit in Utah's state court for review under the state constitution.


    Snyder's attorney, Brian Barnard, says the case is about making prayer at city council meetings equally accessible to all manner of beliefs.

    "Once you allow a person or group to offer a prayer, you have to let everybody do it," Barnard said Wednesday.

    But attorney Rick Van Wagoner, representing Murray City, insists the opening prayer is intended to encourage lofty thoughts and focus attention on
agenda items.

    "We can't bring druids in and have a ceremony sacrificing a chicken," Van Wagoner said. "We don't want to make it a circus sideshow."

    The case began in 1994 when Snyder sued the city of Murray after its officials refused to let him give a proposed prayer considered by city leaders to be disparaging and disrespectful. Snyder's attempt followed close on the heels of a 1993 Utah Supreme Court decision that allowed Salt Lake City to have an opening prayer at council meetings.

    But Van Wagoner said Salt Lake City abandoned the practice when faced with a request from Snyder, who wanted to offer a statement asking "our Mother in heaven" to "prevent these self- righteous politicians from misusing the name of God in conducting government meetings." Snyder then turned to Murray.


    Van Wagoner calls the so-called prayer uncivil and discourteous.

    "Murray City didn't back down, they decided to accept the challenge," Van Wagoner said. "And here we are."

    Relying largely on the landmark 1993 Utah Supreme Court case known as Society of Separationists vs. Whitehead, Henriod said Snyder's proposed prayer constituted "proselytizing, in that its purpose is to encourage others to criticize Murray City's [prayer] policy."

    Van Wagoner called Henriod's ruling "a victory for common courtesy."

    Barnard responded to Henriod by filing notice of his intent to appeal the trial judge's ruling to the Utah Supreme Court.

    Barnard said he will claim Henriod "mis- understood, misconstrued and misapplied" the Society of Separationists ruling, which allowed prayer at Salt Lake City council meetings -- but only if the same forum is available to everyone.

    "You cannot censor a prayer based on the belief system of the person offering it," Barnard said. "And that's exactly what Murray did, and that's
exactly what Henriod says is OK. They're simply wrong."


    Barnard claims that when politicians and city council members say they want prayer at public meetings, "they're in favor only of mainstream, acceptable prayer -- prayer that's comfortable to them."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Faith is the false proposition that something is true even though no evidence for it exists." 

 "Faith is the MISTAKEN proposition that something is true IN SPITE of evidence to the contrary!"

 One person's faith contradicts another's faith, so it can be of no value

"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received
their reward. 

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "

Matthew 6:6