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A Time And Place For Everything

Last week, the Times carried a news story about new Councilman KC Kuykendall asking the Waitsburg City Council to consider adding a prayer or invocation to the opening of its meetings.

Wisely, the council postponed a decision on the question because several council members wanted to hear from members of the community on the subject.

From the research we've done, it appears the addition of prayer would be legal. Government entities can start their meeting with a non-denominational prayer or invocation that acknowledges God but does not reflect a particular faith. Councils in some other communities do this.

But is it right for Waitsburg?

We have no quarrel with Councilman Kuykendall for raising the question. In a free country where everyone should be able to speak his or her mind without sanction, it is his right to express his strongly held beliefs.

We know the councilman to be a deeply Christian member of our community. Again, nothing wrong with that. Several members of our Times team are also Christian and some of us even attend the same Waitsburg church as Kuykendall.

But if reactions to our Facebook posting of his proposal are any indication, there's likely to be a fierce debate about his initiative.

Several of the 1,018 friends the Times has on Facebook said praying before the council's work of making hard choices is appropriate and that starting a council gathering with a prayer is a "fading wisdom that should be honored and respected," as one commentator put it.

However, there were plenty of commentators leaning strongly against the idea. Those who hold this opinion said council members can do as they wish in their private lives and even in the minutes just before a council meeting, but not in a public setting they believe should be neutral.

"There is a time and place for that," one commentator wrote. "City council meetings are not the time and place."

With all due respect to Councilman Kuykendall, this publisher supports the latter opinion.

One's religion or spiritual pursuits should be one's individual choice. Stronger yet, the First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech and Religion contains the right not to believe. Although Kuykendall's proposal does not suggest that the prayer express a specifically Christian faith, faith itself is the underlying reason for proposing it and, as Councilman Scott Nettles rightly pointed out during last week's council meeting, that may make some members of our community feel uncomfortable.

In our research, we were struck by the following comment from a news story about a city council in Mount Vernon, Ohio, which changed the timing of a long tradition. Instead of including an opening prayer on its agenda, it now conducts a prayer two minutes before the official meeting starts.

"We live in a diverse community of many faiths and nonfaiths," Ryan Kitko, a doctoral student at Ohio State University told the Mount Vernon News. "Having a prayer in any faith creates an atmosphere of exclusion."

In addition, council meetings here and elsewhere already begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, which includes the constitutionally challenged and upheld wording "Under God," a phrase in which believers can seek strength and courage to conduct their official business.

Perhaps the best solution is for the faith-minded council members to gather briefly before the mayor opens the meeting to pray or partake in an invocation. Even though members of the public may already be present at this time, the prayer would occur before any official business is conducted and give council members the choice to opt in or out. This form and timing of individual faith expression would seem more appropriate.

Either way, we encourage our readers to take up this subject on our Facebook page or through letters of the editor. On invitation of the council itself, residents of Waitsburg should feel encouraged to express their opinions in some type of public hearing or meeting, though we caution this not become a divisive issue at a time when we're better off working together to improve the future of our town.

 

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