Constitution Doesn’t Bar Opening Prayers

Re “Huntington Beach Hasn’t Got a Prayer Without Her,” May 3

The Huntington Beach mayor who cites upholding the Constitution as a pretext for excluding an invocation before starting City Council meetings is at best displaying a callous indifference to a tradition of opening legislative meetings with a prayer, not to mention the 1st Amendment.

A 1983 Supreme Court decision referred to in the article noted that the Supreme Court and Congress traditionally have begun their sessions with prayers and that individual states do not have to abide by more stringent 1st Amendment limits than the federal government. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that, “in light of the unambiguous and unbroken history of more than 200 years, there can be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society. To invoke divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not an ‘establishment’ of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.”

Parham Eshraghian

Huntington Beach