Group wants council prayers eliminated

As in many other Florida cities, Tampa City Council meetings begin with a recital of the Pledge of Allegiance and a short prayer, known officially as the invocation.

It's a tradition that dates back decades, when the city council began inviting local and visiting clergy to open the weekly meetings at City Hall with prayer.

Now a nationwide watchdog for separation of church and state has taken aim at the practice, contending that council members are violating the separation doctrine.

In a letter to Mayor Pam Iorio and council members, the Freedom From Religion Foundation calls on the city to end the practice of opening council meetings with prayer and argues that council members should not "worship on the taxpayers' dime."

"Government prayer is unnecessary, inappropriate and divisive," wrote Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation. "Calling upon council members to rise and pray, even silently, is coercive, embarrassing and beyond the scope of secular government."

Gaylor said the foundation, which works to protect the separation of church and state defined in the First Amendment, was responding to complaints from Tampa City Council members who were "offended" that the board includes prayers as part of its meetings.

She said a review of the council's minutes by the secular foundation revealed that a majority of the prayers were from the Christian faith and "rarely, if ever, nonsectarian."

"Such prayer creates acrimony, makes minorities feel like political outsiders in their own community, and shows unconstitutional preference not just for religion over non-religion, but Christianity over other faiths," Gaylor wrote.

Council Chairman Tom Scott, an ordained minister, said he understands that some people don't agree with the practice but doesn't believe that laws are being broken. "Both Congress and the state Legislature begin every one of their meetings with the invocation," he said. "How could it possibly be a violation of the First Amendment?"

As a Hillsborough County commissioner in 1996, Scott was the leader in initiating the practice of inviting clergy to meetings to give a spoken prayer as part of the invocations.

He said council members reach out to representatives of many denominations and doesn't see the city's tradition of permitting invocations as sanctioning any particular religion.

The nonprofit Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Wisconsin, has chapters in several states, including Florida, and claims to have more than 14,000 members across the country - including "freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics," according to its Web site. The group has sent out about two dozen similar letters in the past year complaining about prayers at local government functions and has threatened lawsuits.

In some instances, the threat of legal action has prompted changes by local governments. This month, the school board in Akron, Ohio, removed the words "belief in God" from its mission statement after the group warned that it would file a legal challenge.

"We don't get involved unless we are asked," Gaylor said Wednesday. "We've had a flurry of requests from our members to look into the issue of city council prayers."

Public prayer has been a battlefield for years. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1983 affirmed the right of legislative bodies to host prayers before conducting business, but more recent court opinions require that these prayers be nonsectarian. For example, a reference to Jesus, according to one recent court decision, would violate the First Amendment.

Tampa council members take turns choosing someone, usually a minister or rabbi, to deliver what is supposed to be a nondenominational prayer at their weekly meetings.

In recent years, alternatives such as a moment of silence have been substituted. Tampa poet laureate James Tokley has used prose instead of prayer at invocations.

But Hindu or Buddhist leaders, for example, are rarely seen at the front of the council chamber. And in 2004, when a member of Atheists of Florida was invited to give the invocation at a city council meeting, several council members walked out of the room in protest.

Gaylor said citizens who go to secular government meetings should not have to pray.

"They shouldn't be subjected to a religious show or test, or be expected to demonstrate religious obedience," she said. "Divine guidance is not needed for earthly matters."