All or Nothing

Councilman Turner and the ACLU

I’ve received a number of kind comments regarding my op-ed castigating the ACLU for prohibiting Councilman Turner from mentioning Christ in his prayer before City Council meetings. Thank you all for your kind words, e-mails, and the like. I look forward to a genuine debate on the matter.

Not surprisingly, the FLS opinion section added it’s two cents to the discussion:

Commenting on the question of whether Fredericksburg City Councilman Hashmel Turner should be able to say “Jesus Christ” at the end of his periodic invocations at council meetings, as part of an “open door” policy including representatives of various faith groups, City Attorney Kathleen Dooley cautioned: “The problem with inviting people in is deciding who or what’s going to be considered a legitimate religion. If you have a religion of me and my seven cats, are you going to tell them they can’t speak?”

Most likely, nothing as outre as Ms. Dooley’s hypothetical case would occur (cats only think they rate veneration). Congress went on to pass the open-access legislation referenced above and–guess what!–there were no reports of San Francisco school janitors having to wipe up chalk pentagrams from devil-summoning sessions.

But the city attorney’s larger point is sound: Anyone who believes Councilman Turner should be able to reference the Christian Messiah must be willing to abide Muslim, Buddhist, or Sikh invocations, too. And perhaps all sectarian speakers will agree that silence is preferable to mouthing the deistic mush that the ACLU would establish as the official prayer.

Religion – like so many other things – forms the character of our elected officials. If someone who believes in a religion of “me and my seven cats” gets elected to public office, then that person is free to express their religious beliefs before Council meetings. And why not?

Elected officials should be just as free to express their beliefs as anyone else. No one should be asked the check their experiences, beliefs, philosophies, and yes even their religious sentiment at the courthouse door.

Now there is a false argument at play regarding “opening the door to all faith groups.” It would not be the case that every faith-based organization would be invited to pray before meetings. That’s a bit unrealistic. However, among the seven representatives in the horseshoe, each one should be able to express their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) as a part of their prayer. I don’t know if there are any Catholics on Fredericksburg City Council – I doubt it – but I would not be offended in the slightest if each and every one of them expressed their religious senitment in turn before Council meetings. And why should I take offense if they did?

Again, it’s the open society and the public square vs. the closing of the American mind. I disagree strongly that silence is the alternative, because that once again only promotes the antithesis of the public square. All faiths of those at the horseshoe should be able to be expressed without fear of reprisal from the government. That’s the great thing about the Free Exercise Clause of the 1st Amendment. Silence only promotes the secular humanism we should ideally be trying to combat.

Let Reverend Turner pray!