Michigan Township Meetings To Begin With Prayer
[su_right_ad]Orleans Township will begin starting its meetings with prayer.
Supervisor Jim Patrick said he initially brought up the topic after speaking with other residents who attend nearby township and county meetings that begin with an invocation.
“I brought it up, as I know of another nearby township that has been doing this for years,” he said. “It’s been bothering me, because in America in general, we’re doing so much to take God out of everybody’s life.”
Patrick said the invocation will be on a voluntary basis between board members, and in the event that no board member chooses to deliver a prayer, he will do so.
Patrick said his decision to introduce the topic to the board was made firm after reading about several instances across the country in recent years of religion and faith being removed from the public platform.
“From statues and plaques being removed at courthouses, it’s happening everywhere you look,” he said. “I just think that this is an easy, quiet way to show that we still like to have that. I could go on about it for a long time.”
This will set this country right, finally, and solve our problems.
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fahvel March 29th, 2015 at 7:27 am
the god he’s yammering about took itself out of the lives of people a long long time ago. That particular god knew a fk up when he saw one so it’s been ignoring it’s mistake and is now concentrating on a tactic to do away with people- open carry, racist pigs, homophobes, taliban, isis’s, plane crashes, floods, earthquakes – must I go on? Nah. You get the picture: a flash in the pan species which will eat itself from the insides for less than another millennium.
anothertoothpick March 29th, 2015 at 7:29 am
Jesus….has left the building.
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 12:43 pm
I’m rooting for a stray meteor…Give the cockroaches a chance. they can’t do much worse than we have.
FatRat March 29th, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Ironically the cockroaches will be decimated too. Lack of humans waste and heated homes. But they will survive but not thrive the way most think they would.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw_zUUE4BE0
Joe’s Apartment (1996) The bathroom scene
http://discovermagazine.com/2005/feb/earth-without-people
The invincible cockroach, an insect that originated in the hot climes of Africa, would succumb in unheated buildings.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 2:12 pm
Isn’t there any joy or beauty in your life?
My goodness, sure we’ve screwed some things up, but man, what a thrill to go see a nice exhibition of paintings by Monet, Cezanne, or Picasso.
I don’t know, maybe because I am Southern and have the culture in my bones, but oh what a thrill to have some top-notch barbecue!
Life can be so rich if you seek beauty and enjoyable things.
Ever been to the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis? One year I got to see Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Black Crowes and 9 other terrific acts for $17.50. Now it’s up around $25 for a whole day of great music.
He doesn’t do it any more, but I have some wonderful memories of going to Indianola, Miss. to B.B. King’s Homecoming party, another all-day affair at a minimal price. Something like that in the Deep South way back in the country – that’s where you’ll get to have elite-level barbecue.
I’m a sailor and get great pleasure sailing about the Chesapeake Bay. There’s a couple paces where one can hear remnants of the dialect they spoke 300 years ago. It’s an incredibly sublime experience, sailing. I like it at night.
This year I am looking forward to more pleasure at Washington nationals games. Shoot, you can get in for $10 bucks and instead of sitting in the crow’s nest, come down and stand near the food stands and watch the game thataway. Loves me a good baseball game.
I like to fish, too. I like he taste of fresh-caught fish, especially trout. It’s a stone gas to get out on the woods way back away from everyone and do some fishing or just wandering around enjoying nature.
With all tjhis stuff and more going on, I just don’t have the time to go around pissed off all the time, seeking things to gripe about and people to attack.
I’m having too much fun enjoying my life.
Larry Schmitt March 29th, 2015 at 7:30 am
No one is taking god out of anyone’s life. If you want a god in your life, go for it. What some people are trying to stop is having god put in the middle of their lives even when they don’t want it there. Having a town meeting start with a prayer fits that definition. And do we need to guess what kind of prayer it will be? I know what it won’t be: Muslim, Jewish, or any other prayer that doesn’t have Jesus in it.
Carla Akins March 29th, 2015 at 7:55 am
“reading about several instances across the country in recent years” It made the news due to its unconstitutionality, you dumbshit.
Clearly he only read the headline and not the article.
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 12:41 pm
They tried that in my little backwater a few months ago. Each town city council meeting was to be opened with a prayer–oh, and no atheists or muslims allowed!. .. Thankfully it was voted down. We have plenty of problems to deal with here, but a lack of a divisive prayer at the beginning of each town hall meeting is not one of them.
Larry Schmitt March 29th, 2015 at 12:54 pm
I just don’t get the point of a prayer in the first place. If you pay attention to the words, they usually ask for guidance. Someone should compile a spreadsheet to compare how much gets done at meetings that begin with a prayer, with those that don’t. It makes as much sense as praying for rain. Or praying before a football game.
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 1:57 pm
I agree–instead of “praying”, why not do something USEFUL? Praying in public is just for group reassurance that they all believe in the same delusional mythology and to let those who do NOT believe in it that they are different from the herd and will not be taken seriously.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 1:38 pm
Tell us about the divisive prayers they were having.
Were people shouting, raising fists and stomping out of meetings because Benny Hinn was slapping foreheads?
Is that what was going on?
What kind of attendance do you get at your city council meetings anyway?
How many of them have you attended in the past year?
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 1:45 pm
I never read your responses. You’re a one trick pony–there’s really no point.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 2:20 pm
Oh come now.
This is just you stalling till you can figure out something to say in rebuttal, but my one trick is proving to be more than you can handle.
So now you just try to do something like the military when they trade space for time.
Why not go ahead and admit it?
You don’t go to council meetings and the one or two times you did, the invocation went right past you, left you unfazed and you have no real memory of what was said.
Kinda hard to be mad at someone for insulting you when you can’t recall what they said..
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 5:14 pm
No divisive prayers, huh?
I thought so because I have been to so many meetings and seen a common effort by whomever did the invocation to respect the views of others and not use the platform to proselytize or make theological points or press issues of the day.
It’s almost always a short quick little thing and those who were perhaps apprehensive about hearing something from someone of a different faith end up breathing a sigh of relief.
I’ve never seen a Baptist get up in front o a bunch of Methodists and go on about baptism. I’ve never seen a Mormon push the Book of Mormon or parts of their faith that differ from others. I’ve never seen a Catholic rail about abortion, the death penalty or gay marriage at one of these invocations.
I liked my Benny Hinn line. I hope you get the point of it.
I also hope you haven’t overlooked at least twice where I said we are pretty much in agreement. I could very easily make the identical argument. I’ve done it many times. But if no one else is, I’d just as soon bring a practical perspective to the discussion, since what I would otherwise say be the same as you and others.
I like a discussion where we look at things from different perspectives. Instead of getting mad the way some seem to do, I just like having a nice exchange.
I try not to call names or use invective that is too sharp, at least to other users.
I try to use that “do unto others” principle. So often I see people here club the Right for name-calling and/or nastiness and then respond with the same. So what they did was increase the very sort of thing they object to.
A good debater can make his or her points without the childishness that is playground name-calling.
Anomaly 100 March 30th, 2015 at 3:12 pm
Whoever is doing it, please quit flagging Burqa’s comments. We’re allowed to disagree here, k?
craig7120 March 30th, 2015 at 3:46 pm
LOL
I was gonna flag your comment to be a smart ass but was unsure of your physical strength. You might come over and lump me up.
Twasn’t me btw
Anomaly 100 March 30th, 2015 at 4:21 pm
Lololol. Please flag me, OK? The mods and I were having a contest at one point over who gets flagged the most.
craig7120 March 30th, 2015 at 4:24 pm
Bam!
How you like me now?
Anomaly 100 March 30th, 2015 at 4:26 pm
I love you as much as I did before. Lots! <3
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 9:39 am
This is news? You gotta go all the way to a small town in Michigan (population 2736 in the 2000 census) to discover public meetings opened with an invocation?
Apparently Alan doesn’t get involved with local issues.
I do and have attended countless meetings of city council, county boards of supervisors, planning commission, architectural review board, school board and other various public meetings and it is seldom I’ve been to one where there was not an invocation of some sort. They occur before sporting events. I can’t recall for sure, but several years ago Fredericksburg had some people come in and blow up the dam on the Rappahannock River. There were festivities and officials making proclamations and such and it is very likely they had an invocation to that, too.I remember one at the opening of a new location for the state fair as well as high school and college graduation.
Somehow we’ve survived lo sall these 240+ years. I daresay we will survive for another 240+ (though a few along the way may get cases of the vapors) if the practice is continued.
Oh, I did a little looking and, shades of horrors, right there on the township homepage is a CHURCH DIRECTORY!
RIGHT THERE IN YOUR FACE!
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 12:30 pm
You just don’t understand freedom of religion, do you.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 1:34 pm
Oh I understand religious freedom all right. I am typing this about 50 yards from where the document the whole concept in the Constitution is based upon.
Here we have a forum where we discuss national and international affairs, but Alan has to streeeeeeetch way the hell out to a little town in Michigan I never even heard of and dig this up even though there is no sign of anyone being bothered by the rudeness and unConstitutionality and all.
This is pointy-headed know-it-alls coming in unasked to tell people what to do. This is nothing more than a self-administered ego pump to keep the fires burning, no matter how far off the beaten path one has to go to find something, anything to get upset about.
I am for religious freedom and pretty much agree with you, in fact. But I’ve also been to too many meetings such as those I mentioned above as well as quite a few military ceremonies where they had invocations an no one was ever bothered.
I look at the practice and not only do I not see people bothered in the slightest, but I also see the government doing things like not only opening Congress with a prayer, but having a chaplain on staff. We have invocations at presidential swearing-ins.
Our military has chaplains of many faiths that have an extraordinary history of doing praiseworthy work on the battlefield. I’ve read the history and spoken to Marines going back to Tulagi and Guadalcanal who described, sometimes in awe, the heroism of some of these unarmed chaplains.
As to your town, they should not have banned atheists or Muslims, but just tried to make sure that they didn’t get one of these thin-skinned people pretending to get the vapors at an invocation. There are those who would like to turn it into a joke and that’s not the function of an invocation. Basically it is an ice breaker, like talk show callers saying “Thanks for taking my call.” It just gets people settled down and at attention and in the right mood in which to conduct public business.
The ones I hear are generally fairly bland and general. I’ve never heard one where they talk about abortion or gay marriage.
If the people object, as they did in your town, fine.
If no one objects or it’s just a handful of argumentative types looking for something – anything to argue about or if it is some bigots who just hate people of faith, then leave-em alone.
It’s just not that big a deal.
What next, is Alan going to come down here and object to a public building being used for a food bank by churches way out in the boondocks that need space?
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 1:50 pm
See, I’m not reading this one either.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 2:22 pm
of course you are and this is you waving a white flag like Horshak waving his arm trying to answer one of Mr. Kotter’s questions.
“OOH!-OOH!”
Lighten up and lets have a more convivial discussion like grownups do.
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 12:56 pm
” a few military ceremonies where they had invocations an no one was ever bothered.”
You don’t know that. Many could have been ‘bothered’ but choose not to object due, in no small part, to public pressure. It has only been recent that individuals and groups have started speaking up and objecting. Large cities have abandoned such unnecessary waste of time, and even many smaller communities have stopped doing the same.
Banging the gavel is not more jarring in a city/town council meeting than it is in a courtroom.
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 1:12 pm
This is ‘news’ or ‘newsworthy’ because of two points. 1) The council is starting this NOW. It apparently wasn’t the practice before.
2) it is limited, if I’m reading this article correctly, to council members giving an invocation; no outside speakers are involved.
Larry Schmitt March 29th, 2015 at 11:38 am
It’s not a question of whether someone at the meeting will be offended. This supervisor says he got the idea “because in America in general, we’re doing so much to take God out of everybody’s life.” And I think on that point, he’s full of it. He’s not prevented from praying whenever he wants. But in this country, religion is not supposed to be supported by the government.
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 12:42 pm
Burqa will NEVER get it. They are lucky that they live in a country that HAS freedom of and from religion, even if they have no effing idea what the hell it is.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 1:57 pm
Yep, I don’t know when that town was founded but they seem to be fine with the freedom you refer to for however many years they’ve been in existence and are not having any problems with it.
The only ones with a problem seem to be those who just look for something to argue about and who appear to have a particular bias against Christians, rather than religion, because they rarely discuss other major religions.
These aren’t people fighting back because they’ve been discriminated against or insulted. No, these are people who want to attack other people and this is just a convenient pretext.
Bunya March 30th, 2015 at 2:41 pm
Just ignore Burqa. He, like Trees, is nothing but a Christian apologist with nothing of value to add, here only to insult and stir up trouble.
bluejayray March 30th, 2015 at 4:42 pm
I usually try to ignore him–waste of time, one trick pony. Really tetchy about the supernatural. I think he has an alarm set that goes off whenever someone brings up freedom from religion.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 1:52 pm
Going back to your first post, you’ll see by my posts above that I attend more public meetings than most people I know. I hear these invocations often. Here they rarely mention Jesus, and I have been to meetings where they had someone Jewish or a Bahai’i (sorry if I misspelled) and American Indians.
One of my friends is an Indian who goes up ON FEDERAL LAND at Arlington National Cemetery and does burial services and some other thing they do that I’m not sure of what it is. I just respect them for it and enjoy it.
Like I said to bluejayray, I pretty much agree with both of you, but I see things in practice that do no harm that people seem to like and are traditional.
From the first days of our government under the Constitution, there has been government involvement of one sort or other with various faiths. Indeed, when they voted to approve the Constitution, as I recall, the first thing that happened next was Ben Franklin proposed a prayer.
It would be nice in a way if there was no need or it made no difference and the government never had anything in the least to do with religion. But that ignores what happens in daily life. Here it was government working with ministers from a group of different churches that got us our homeless shelter.
It was a heartening sight, one that has stayed with me about 35 years now, to see these ministers get right up in the faces of elected officials and a few local poobahs and call them out on it. That’s what it took.
I could name other things of the sort where no one was harmed but a lot of good was done when people of good will worked to get something like that done.
bluejayray March 29th, 2015 at 12:29 pm
Gag me with a spork. Our local church ladies tried to do this–thankfully they were voted down.
arc99 March 29th, 2015 at 1:49 pm
My problem with all of this is that I see no evidence that advocates of public prayer at government functions are open to having all faiths represented.
We have seen several examples around the country where everyone was gung-ho on prayer at legislative sessions until a Muslim or a Wiccan a Hindu was invited to lead the invocation. I can find no empathy or support for people who want non-Christians to sit through a Christian prayer, but are unwilling to extend the same courtesy to non-Christian beliefs or beliefs unrelated to the worship of the God of Abraham.
Praise Jesus and Hail Satan are equal under the law.
If you do not believe that, then you have no business advocating for your prayer while excluding others.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 4:55 pm
Good points.
As I mentioned below, I go to all kinds of public meetings and have heard invocations from various Christian sects and some others. One thing I liked was the people doing it realized that others did not share their faith but were being respectfully polite and so the person would return the favor. They would do this by not pushing doctrinal points where they may differ from others. They haven’t used it to score points or take advantage to make points knowing there would be no reply. Instead they’ve all kept it pretty generic and no one suffers the kind of anguished trauma hinted at here..Usually it’s a short thing, less than a minute and afterwards I imagine most of the others have forgotten precisely what was said or any disagreement they may have.
The way it seems to function in practice is not so much of a spiritual thing as much as a more communal sort of thing. It helps people to settle down, relax and get into the subjects of the meeting.
Beforehand you have people sitting and chatting among themselves on everything from sports to gossip. It would be jarring to just slap the gavel down, proclaim the meeting open and begin with the first order of business.
The invocation serves as a sort of bridge and is usually followed by a few moments of silence as people get ready for things to begin and from there the meeting can get off to a smoother start.
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 12:43 pm
A moment of silence would do as well without as much controversy.
arc99 March 29th, 2015 at 2:31 pm
Let’s see how this one plays out. Not surprisingly it takes a Democratic politician to illustrate that the first amendment applies to all beliefs, not just those derived from Mosaic traditions and/or belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/wiccan-priestess-to-give-invocation-to-iowa-house-20150328
CEDAR RAPIDS — A Wiccan priestess has been invited to give the invocation to the Iowa House of Representatives. On April 9, Deborah Maynard, a member of the People’s Church Unitarian Universalist, will travel to Des Moines to deliver her blessing.
According to Maynard, her prayer will make history.
“I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal, until I did more research on it,” she said. “The more research I did on it, that’s when I found that it’s never been done in a state government body before by a Wiccan.”
A 2014 Supreme Court ruling allowed for sectarian prayer before government bodies, as long as the prayer is inclusive.
And democratic representative Liz Bennett of Cedar Rapids, who invited Maynard to give the blessing, said inclusion is her goal.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 2:39 pm
Sounds neat to me.
Before we even had a Democratic Party it was made clear that religious freedom was for all.
The first great American document upon which the First Amendment religious freedom part derives from the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, written by Tom Jefferson, James Madison, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe and a couple others I can’t recall. George Mason may have been in there. All churchgoing men, they hammered it out here in Fredericksburg at a hotel whose name I can never remember, partially because I learned the latter name of the building – the Maury Hotel.
There were efforts by some to insert religious language in the preamble of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. In 1:67 of his Autobiography in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, editor Andrew Lipscomb quotes Jefferson on the proposal:
“The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.”
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 12:40 pm
Not sue about them being ‘all church going men’. Jefferson Madison and Mason too IIRC, were NOT christians.
burqa March 29th, 2015 at 9:27 pm
I would hope thing go smoothly for the Wiccan princess.
But that’s in cedar Rapids and the town in the OP is Orleans Township, Michigan.
I looked around and did not see a church directory for the town but the one for the county the town is in listed all but two of the churches as Christian denominations with 2 nondenominational ones, but apparently one of those is Christian. The other one I couldn’t tell. So it doesn’t seem likely they have a non-Christian church in the area.
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 12:38 pm
‘nondenominational’ most always mean christian. Small churches like this are generally owned and run by the preacher himself. No real accountability, oversight or control. If, as has happened here where I’m at, the preacher decides to run off with the treasury, he can.
Roctuna March 30th, 2015 at 8:39 am
I just don’t understand why some politicians feel it’s their responsibility to bring god into our lives. Isn’t that why there’s a church on nearly every corner not to mention their TV channels, megachurches, DVD’s, bookstores and movies? That seems sufficient to me.
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 12:34 pm
They wish to give the impression that ‘god in on their side’. That what they do is somehow honorable, just, right, or whatever. Like many a ‘leader’ they use religion as a tool to support they actions.
Suzanne McFly March 30th, 2015 at 8:53 am
Yeah, cause if we learned one thing we have learned that nothing but peaceful results occur when you bring religion in the mix.
Dwendt44 March 30th, 2015 at 1:05 pm
So as long as on one locally objects, a town council can ignore the Constitution at will?
This is why it often takes ‘an outsider’ to point out the violation and to raise an objection. This is why many of such lawsuits are brought FOR a ‘John doe’ plaintiff. Local pressure and the likelihood of retaliation or persecution are what’s often used to discourage those that are not with the ‘in crowd’.
Warman1138 March 30th, 2015 at 1:35 pm
The ” crusades ” never ended……..just changed.
Apocalypse March 30th, 2015 at 2:22 pm
The Freedom from Religion Foundation will have something about that. They might pull back when atheist demand to make invocations a well.
bpollen March 30th, 2015 at 5:50 pm
Oh! Oh! I got one!
“Glory be to you, O Allah, and all praises are due unto you, and blessed is your name and high is your majesty and none is worthy of worship but you.”
and this!
“Isis, who was and is and shall ever be, daughter of the earth and sky,
I honor you and sing your praises.
Glorious goddess of magic and light,
I open my heart to your mysteries.”
Bunya March 31st, 2015 at 2:57 pm
I have a better idea. I say every church service should begin with the pledge of allegiance followed by a reading of the constitution.