They are still not an Atheist and should not be forced to behave like one. That is what the free expression of religion clause is about.

They are not forced to denounce God. Do you pray 24/7? Surely there are other times in the day where you go an hour without praying. Even if your particular religion did require you to pray at a time which coincided with a meeting, the council would be obliged to excuse you while you did.

If the prayer is said for the benefit of the audience

The council has no business praying on the behalf of its citizens.

If it is for the council’s benefit then they need only concider the council members religions.

The council is a government body and it would clearly violate the establishment clause for it to pray for its own benefit.

The only other possibility is that each councilmember is praying individually on his or her behalf. They are completely free to do so.

However, it would take a very creative mind to construe a prayer at the meeting table after the designated meeting time as “each councilmember praying individually.”

As usual, our disagreement comes down to your belief that the free expression clause applies to government bodies. That is not the case. I say that not to belittle your opinions, but for the benefit of anyone that may be watching this exchange.

They are still not an Atheist and should not be forced to behave like one. That is what the free expression of religion clause is about. If the prayer is said for the benefit of the audience then a reasonable way should be made to give all audience members a chance to express their religion. If it is for the council’s benefit then they need only concider the council members religions.

people who work in government holding a prayer before they work

The problem is that it’s not “before they work.” If the prayer is part of the agenda and they typically wait for everyone to arrive before beginning it, they are doing so in their official capacity.

Now if a councilman wants to say a prayer when he first walks in the door or while he’s waiting for the meeting to start, that’s his business. Ya just can’t do it as part of the meeting.

Funny how many ACLU types are the first to tell us when we see something objectionable on TV, we should turn it off/change the channel/ ignore it.

TV is a product that I voluntarily purchased. Government is a fact of life. The establishment clause says that I shouldn’t have to opt out of government meetings because of the religious inclinations of its officeholders.

When someone drives down my suburban street with his radio so loud everyone for a block can hear the words, its fredom of expression and I should just ignore it.

This is a really bad analogy. Most communities have noise ordinances and they are constitutional.

Yes, this is my thought also. The ACLU wouldn’t make such a mistake.

Regardless, I’d like to hear from Jay how the ACLU’s actions here can be opposed on the basis of anything other than Jesus deserving special consideration among deities/sons of deities. If you think the U.S. should become a nation of Christ, well, that’s a position, though not a constitutionally defensible one.

In that case, it seems very hard to believe there was estabilishment clause intent to not allow governmental meetings to be begun with a prayer.

Funny that they claim the Establishment Clause clearly mentions prayer at government meetings. I never read that part.

It wasn’t a direct quote. I can’t be sure because the article doesn’t cite any sources, but I’m inclined to believe that the author did a poor job of summarizing the ACLU’s statement.

City Attorney Ron Seeber says the ACLU’s interpretation is correct.

I thought that was worth highlighting.