Does Prayer Belong at Bradenton City Council Meetings?

Does prayer belong at government meetings?

The Bradenton City Council thinks so. City attorney Bill Lisch has been asked to present council members next week with a resolution that seeks to formalize the council's longtime practice of starting its meetings with an invocation by a local clergy member.

The resolution states the council wishes to "maintain such tradition of solemnizing its proceedings by allowing for an open invocation before each meeting."

It points to several Supreme Court decisions, as well as a recent ruling in Lakeland that upheld the constitutionality of prayer before meetings.

In the Lakeland case, Atheists of Florida Inc. filed a 2010 lawsuit "contending, among other things, that praying during the meetings breaks down the division between church and state," the Lakeland Ledger reports.

Resolution No. 13-19, which will be presented to the Bradenton City Council at its May 22 meeting, is careful to note such a policy isn't intended to "proselytize or advance any faith." No one at the meeting would be required to participate, and the mayor's office would draw from a wide pool of people of various faiths and congregations.

Clergy are invited to voluntarily offer the invocation and asked only that the opportunity "not be exploited as an effort to convert others to the particular faith of the invocation speaker, nor to disparage any faith or belief different than that of the invocation speaker."

The city council next meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 22, at City Hall.

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