Secular Government? Sure...

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

... at least anywhere outside of Durham, Mississauga, and Brampton.

Durham Praises the Lord

Committee backs Lord's Prayer before council meetings, dozens of residents turn out to protest effort to ban it

January 18, 2007

Carola Vyhnak

Staff reporter

God won.

After three hours of impassioned – and unopposed – pleas from Durham residents to continue the tradition of reciting the Lord's Prayer at regional council meetings, the finance committee decided yesterday to do just that.

"God is the Supreme Being. Period. Full stop," declared Oshawa Mayor John Gray, who said he'd received "countless emails and letters" urging council to keep the Lord's Prayer.

"We have to heed the message."

The issue arose after an Ottawa-based group called Secular Ontario sent a letter to municipal councils warning them that public recitation of the prayer was illegal, based on a 1999 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling against the town of Penetanguishene, which said reciting the prayer violates the Charter of Rights of non-Christians attending council meetings.

Secular Ontario president Henry Beissel urged councils to end the "offending practice" immediately.

(Several other GTA councils recite the Lord's Prayer, while many have abandoned prayer or offer a non-denominational prayer instead – a practice upheld in another court ruling involving Renfrew County in 2005.)

Durham's finance and administration committee will recommend to the regional council that meeting procedures be "tweaked" so the Lord's Prayer can be said before the meeting is called to order. Anyone who feels uncomfortable "doesn't have to stay in the room," said region Chair Roger Anderson, who drafted the recommendation.

The decision was hailed by 50 spectators – including one who brought her Bible – as one after another praised the Lord and the power of prayer.

Retired Courtice doctor John Wilson told the committee the 2,000-year-old prayer, "given to us by Jesus Christ," is needed now more than ever as the world sinks into secular confusion, disharmony and immorality.

"The family that prays together, stays together," he added.

Themes of tolerance, respect and inclusion laced the speeches made to committee.

Some were made from written notes, some off the cuff, but all apparently from the heart. Speakers drew on history, tradition, wars, spiritual and cultural heritage, and the constitution.

The Lord's Prayer is a universally recognized and accepted expression of faith that is embraced by Christians and many others, they said.

"Prayer will give you the wisdom to make decisions, and I want you to be very wise," Dr. Gabriel Ferdinand told committee members.

In a phone interview later, Beissel called the committee's solution "disingenuous."

"It is equally illegal and immoral," he said.

The issue is to go before Durham Region council at its meeting next Wednesday.

For starters, how about enforcing the terms of this prayer, then? Say, take the line, "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us" - wouldn't that entail blanket amnesties for all sorts of misdemeanors?

It's really kind of sad and embarrassing that people continue to act like this.

[Kanada Kev]

Ugh! Same old tired debate. They want to have this prayer (and no others) before council meetings. If i lived in Durham and followed another religion that Christianity, i'd be right pissed-off if they wouldn't recite "my" prayer before their meetings too.

Include ALL ... how fucking hard is that?

If my mayor said

"God is the Supreme Being. Period. Full stop," declared Oshawa Mayor John Gray

I'd be calling his office asap and giving him a piece of my mind.

Later . . .

Kanada Kev =8)

[d_rawk]

It's an odd message for government at any level to send -- that if you happen to find the law inconvenient, you should just go ahead and break it.

(I wonder too what the woman who brought her bible makes of, say, Matthew 6:5-6 when she comes across it ...)

Nobody is telling these people that they can't pray whatever prayer they want, or that they can't pray it in the building they've been praying it in, or that they can't continue to pray it as a group all together. I simply don't understand why that isn't sufficient. Why push it so far as to make it illegally part of the official civil proceedings such that it's imposed on everyone?

[MarcO]

total bullshit. We really need to start marginilizing creepy people who can't make the distinction between their personal beliefs and the concept of holding public, secular office.

"God is the Supreme Being. Period. Full stop." - And this is the mayor saying this!

"Prayer will give you the wisdom to make decisions....". No, sorry there's no wisdom imparted here, just the warm fuzzy feeling you give to yourself. That's not wisdom, it's a delusion, and not least a distraction.

[d_rawk]

We really need to start marginilizing creepy people who can't make the distinction between their personal beliefs and the concept of holding public, secular office.

This bit really got me:

After three hours of impassioned – and unopposed – pleas from Durham residents to continue the tradition of reciting the Lord's Prayer at regional council meetings, the finance committee decided yesterday to do just that.

Unopposed? There was not a single person in attendance who desired that their municipal government act in accordance with the principals of democracy and in accordance with the law? Not one?

That alone is appalling, the rest of it compounds it. It says a whole lot about the character of council members and of those in attendence to council meetings. Reasonable individuals with some respect for democratic process need to involve themselves -- otherwise I'm not sure how one goes about marginalizing the only people willing to participate.

[The Chameleon]

There is no room for prayer or religion in a governing system that is based on separation of church and state.

Total hypocrisy!

[djmelbatoast]

The Lord's Prayer is a universally recognized and accepted expression of faith that is embraced by Christians and many others, they said.

Yes, many others: Methodists, and Baptists, and Anglicans, and Lutherans and... wait a minute. All of these are Christian Protestant. Weird.

[d_rawk]

Heh, yeah. It's one of those statements that while not completely inaccurate, is pretty meaningless.

Like saying -- "Dogs are universally recognized and accepted as mammals and embraced by dog owners and many others".

Ok. Sure.

That's true.

But that doesn't mean that everybody wants one.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm still ticked at the lack of response to a complaint I put out back in December about our girls' school's promotion of a Samaritan's Purse gift drive. The organisation is headed by Billy's son, Franklin Graham , whose more obnoxious comments on other religions I included in my note. I figure either someone just dropped the ball, or there's some tacit objective in play about not letting secular interests get in the way of determined mission efforts. I really hope it was just the former, but I also know how people can dig their heels in over these sorts of things until forced to show their hand.