Cities Espousing ‘Official’ Prayer Take Pains to Avoid Favoritism

In most Orange County cities, opening prayers are as customary at city council meetings as the flag salute. But in a climate of growing sensitivity to diverse beliefs, the public invocation has become an uneasy, sometimes testy, junction for church and state.

“There aren’t any rules,” said Shari Erlewine, director of communications for the League of California Cities. “It’s handled different by nearly every city. If anything, there’s a trend to no invocation at all.”

In Orange County, the pre-meeting prayer has simply been discarded by city councils in Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Irvine, Seal Beach, Stanton, Villa Park and Santa Ana.

“We’ve never had a prayer since I’ve been on the council, or even a request for a prayer,” said Laguna Beach Mayor Lida Lenney. In Santa Ana, the prayers were scrapped after city officials could not find a wide enough variety of clergy to deliver them. Irvine’s ban is based on legal consideration regarding separation of church and state.

Recently in Tustin, Mayor Richard B. Edgar sent local clergy a letter saying that prayers were allowed before meetings but should not use “language that might be construed as endorsing a particular religious belief.” As chairman of the meetings, the mayor may set such policies without consulting council members.

In a second letter, the mayor tried to distance himself from a growing controversy, saying he didn’t mean clergy could not mention the name Jesus during prayers. But City Atty. James G. Rourke, whose memo prompted the mayor’s first letter, stands by his original statement that prayers that invoke Jesus promote Christianity, exclude non-Christians and violate the U.S. Constitution. The word God is acceptable because all religions affirm belief in a supreme being, he said.

In Rourke’s opinion, an appellate court decision last year opens the way for a lawsuit against the city if clergy specifically name Jesus--as well as Moses, Buddha or Mohammed--or if their prayers are “overly religious.”

Already, Rourke said, he has received several calls from city and public agency attorneys who also believe their clients have been violating the law.

While Christian activists oppose the move on “free speech” grounds, Carol Sobel, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles, approves. “Equal to being correct legally, he is correct on the obligations of elected public officials in a pluralistic society,” she said.

“If the city of Tustin invited a Buddhist religious official or Islamic religious officials to do those prayers on a regular basis, praying to Buddha or to Allah, I doubt critics of the city attorney would like it very much.”

In general, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that denominational prayers in school and government-sponsored meetings violate the First Amendment provision that government establish no state religion, said Neil Gotanda, professor at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton. He said a puzzling exception was made for Congress and state legislatures, which routinely allow prayers ending “in the name of Jesus.”

Nevertheless, many public schools also continue to sponsor prayers, and so do most Orange County city councils--as long as the prayers are non-sectarian.

In some cities, council members lead the invocation. But in most, ministers, rabbis and priests are asked to pray on a rotating basis.

An example of what Rourke might describe as “overly religious” occurred two weeks ago at a meeting in Garden Grove. A pastor from a Vietnamese Lutheran church prayed for 10 minutes, said City Clerk Carolyn Morris. “It was much longer than anything we’ve ever had before.”

Many agencies have prayers because they are traditional.

The County Board of Supervisors invites clergy who are based in the chairman’s district. “We’ve done it forever,” said County Counsel Adrian Kuyper. “No one has ever questioned it.”

In Huntington Beach, Evelyn Schubert, deputy city clerk, said officials have invited children to give invocations for at least 12 years. The children, who are given no restrictions, offer simple blessings such as: “Help the council make good decisions.”

In the new city of Dana Point, council members decided they wanted prayers but would avoid any church-state conflict by praying before calling the meeting to order. “It’s nice,” said Mayor Eileen Krause. “It sets it up as a warm, but formal beginning before we start our council meeting.”

In the past, the only controversy surrounding prayer at government meetings has been over the issue of denominational representation.

In Westminster and San Clemente, city clerks say, there have been complaints that the Jewish faith was not fairly represented. But neither city has many synagogues so the issue died down, they said.

“It’s definitely a problem for Jews when the prayer is through Jesus Christ,” said Rabbi Allen Krause, president of the Orange County Board of Rabbis.

When he is asked to give a prayer in a civic setting, Krause said, he invokes the name of God only in circumstances where he is sure no one is excluded. “I don’t feel comfortable in a school graduation ceremony invoking the deity because there might be people there who are Buddhists and don’t have that kind of belief. I don’t want them to feel excluded,” he said.

In general, city clerks say they try to maintain a balance between denominations.

Some cities send letters to clergy members, inviting them to pray before meetings. In Orange and several other cities, ministers are asked to remember the diversity of religious beliefs and faiths when they compose their invocations.

Most urban agencies are extremely cautious, Sobel said.

“Lord, our father, we ask you for guidance” is about as religious as the Christian prayer-givers get in major urban areas such as Orange County, she said. But the U.S. Supreme Court has considered even that language sectarian in a high school setting, she said.

The only time she could recall that sectarian prayers started to flourish was after suggestions that non-sectarian prayers be eliminated.