The City Council in Roswell, Ga., has no business opening public meetings with "religious ritual prayer," the Freedom From Religion Foundation said in a Feb. 18 letter to council members and Mayor Jere Wood.
The Foundation, a national state-church watchdog, sent the letter on behalf of a local complainant and its approximate 260 Georgia members.
According to a Feb. 10 story in the Roswell Neighbor, Elizabeth "Betty" Price, a new council member, recently proposed a new policy of starting meetings with prayer. The paper reported that Price, who is married to U.S. Rep. Tom Price, said the council "sometimes lost its civility toward one another during the council meetings. . . . I hope that through starting our meetings with an invocation, perhaps it could set the overall tone to one of reconciliation and better relations.
"It is an attempt to reconnect to our core values that are definitely based in a variety of faith traditions," Price said.
Rebecca Markert, FFRF staff attorney, wrote the city that asking citizens to rise and pray, even silently, at a public meeting goes beyond the scope of secular government. "They do not need to worship on taxpayers' time. The city ought not to lend its power and prestige to religion, amounting to a governmental endorsement that excludes the 15 percent of your population that is nonreligious."
According to the Roswell Neighbor, Mayor Wood suggested "we all commit to recommending people to come say the prayer, and each council member, not staff, would be responsible for getting those people to some meetings every year." If the person invited by a council member didn’t show up to pray, the council member would lead the prayer, Wood said.
The Foundation's letter urged the city to observe the constitutional mandate to keep state and church separate: "Citizens of all religions or no religion are compelled to come before you on civic, secular matters: variances, sewers, building permits, restaurant licenses, sidewalk repair, etc. They should not be subjected to a religious show or test, or be expected to demonstrate religious obeisance at a city function."
