Castle Rock

Prayer at City Council Meetings
Sample Letter to Your Newspaper Editor

Dear Editor,

In January of this year, the Castle Rock town council voted to start every meeting with a prayer. They are offered by a rotation of the town’s church leaders. Prayer during government meetings is not in keeping with the intent of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

There are several noteworthy objections to this policy, including:

• The City Council has an ethical obligation to serve all residents without giving the impression of favoritism to members of the majority, or any, or no, religion. Invocations or prayers at official government functions tend to give the impression that the government approves of the religious sentiments expressed, to the exclusion of other views.
  
  
• Government's work is entirely secular. It must serve all residents without any preference, prejudice or discrimination. An opening prayer fails to have any secular purpose.
  
  
• Members of minority, non-Christian traditions, may feel that the Council is excluding their opinions and concerns about Town business.
  
  
• Nothing prevents the Town's religious congregations and pastors from offering prayers at their places of worship appealing to a higher power to inspire the Council's work on behalf of the town.
  
  
• The protocol (which can be found here) specifies that invocations will be given by “Group represented by the speaker has a place of public assembly”, and  “Organization has a recognized tax-exempt status”. These requirements might prevent small sects from having access to the council invocation program. Humanists, Freethinkers, Wiccans and others who meet informally in homes, or who have lay preachers, might well be excluded.

• A pastor who is considered too argumentative and outspoken on some town issues may be denied this forum. It is not government's role to tell religious leaders how and what to pray.
  

Prayer invocations are a clear violation of the first amendment, exclusionary, and a violation of Castle Rock's first ethical priority to not express favoritism.

Sincerely

(Your name and address here)

Letters to the Editor:

The Castle Rock News-Press
125 Stephanie Place
Castle Rock, CO 80109
(303) 688-3128
Jeremy Bangs, Managing Editor
jbangs@ccnewspapers.com

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