The Elmhurst City Council will be debating whether to have prayer before meetings            
in the next few weeks.                                                                   Post-Exchange/JAMIE LOO

Prayer before meetings discussed

Elmhurst residents voice opinions, issue sent to committee

By Jamie Loo, First Amendment reporter

February 2, 2010

ELMHURST—The Rev. Tony Taschetta said he knew what he was about to do was a little controversial.

“Let us pray,” he said.

This would have been normal had it been a Sunday morning in his parish. But Taschetta was giving the invocation before the Elmhurst City Council, which just started debating whether to include prayer on their regular agenda before meetings.

The question of public prayer is one that many schools, municipalities and state governments have wrangled with for decades. It has landed in many courtrooms including the U.S. Supreme Court but continues to generate controversy and go unresolved.

Elmhurst Mayor Pete DiCianni suggested the council consider opening meetings with a prayer at their January meeting. DiCianni said leaders from all faiths could be invited to pray at the meetings. But some alderman said they are concerned about its legality and whether it will reflect the diversity of faith in the community. Elmhurst residents gave their initial thoughts on the issue at Monday’s meeting.

Nina Benson said she regularly attends church and teaches Sunday School. Although she is a religious person, Benson said faith is a personal matter that doesn’t have a place in government meetings. It’s divisive to try to implement prayer into meetings, she said, and the meetings have been fine without prayer.

Mark Heisler said DiCianni was “elected to do the work of the city of Elmhurst. Not God’s work.” Any sectarian prayer before the council meetings is “offensive,” he said, and doesn’t help advance the city’s mission statement of being open and respectful. Heisler said he is concerned the city is opening itself up to distracting lawsuits when there are other more pressing issues the council should be handling. Elmhurst has more than 30 houses of worship for residents to express their religions privately, he said, and the council doesn’t need to have prayer in a public forum.

Laura Kratz, president of the League of Women Voters of Elmhurst, said city officials need to create an environment that is open and welcoming of all residents. Public prayer could make some residents feel uncomfortable addressing the council and to others could appear to be an endorsement of religion. Kratz said the LWV doesn’t dispute the mayor and council’s individual right to religious expression and wouldn’t object to them praying prior to meetings. The LWV sent DiCianni a strongly worded letter a letter on Jan. 26 calling the proposal an “unconstitutional endorsement of religion.” The letter went on to say that it’s disingenuous for the mayor to assert that all residents in the community are religious.

But DuPage County Board Member, Jeff Redick, said prayer before meetings is constitutional and that invocations are given before the county board meetings, Illinois state legislature, and many other governing bodies across the country. Redick said this is not part of a religious agenda and a nonsectarian prayer before meetings will not create lawsuits.

“The First Amendment was not intended to protect government from religion. It was to protect religion from government,” Redick said.

Some people feel that everything that happens in city hall should be secular, he said. But Redick said there is a secular benefit in leaders taking time to breathe and reflect quietly before going into meetings to make important decisions for the community.

DiCianni said an Elmhurst mayor in the 1970s opened up council meetings with prayer. The mayor said it has never been legislated in Elmhurst and prayer is a leadership decision made by each mayor with the support of the council. It is constitutional, he said, and echoed Redick in noting that the state legislature prays before their sessions. He said the invocations would be open to all religious leaders in the community and that they would closely follow what is constitutionally allowed. DiCianni said he proposed the prayer to provide inspiration and guidance that would help bring the council together.

Alderman Mark Mulliner said he is disturbed that Taschetta’s invocation was on the agenda before the council has had a chance address this issue, especially when they’re considering amendments to Chapter 2 of the city code which governs meeting procedures. Mulliner said he felt this was “thrust down our throats.” At the close of the meeting, Alderman Michael Bram said he skipped the first part of the meeting because he feels the prayer issue should be properly debated before a formal invocation is placed on the agenda.

DiCianni said he didn’t mean to cause offense by inviting Taschetta. The prayer issue has been sent to the council’s finance, council affairs, and administrative services committee for discussion. The committee will meet on Monday.

District courts often cite the 1983 Supreme Court case, Marsh v. Chambers in rulings on prayer before government meetings. The question in the case was based on whether Congress and state lawmakers can pay for a chaplain to open legislative sessions with prayer. In a 6-3 decision, the court found that because the governing bodies were not favoring one religion over another the practice was constitutional.

Since the Supreme Court decision, lower courts have split on the issue. Some courts have ruled that prayer shouldn’t reference particular deities or proselytize, while others say sectarian prayers can be allowed as long as prayers from a variety of religions are represented at meetings.

A U.S. District Court judge ruled last week that a county board of commissioners in North Carolina cannot have prayers before their meetings. Judge James A. Beaty Jr., ruled that the facts in the case showed that the prayers before the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners advanced one particular faith.

“The Supreme Court has also emphasized that such legislative prayers must not advance a particular faith or belief, because to do so would have the effect of affiliating the government with that particular faith or belief in violation of the Establishment Clause,” Beaty wrote in his opinion.

In 2008, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a Fredericksburg, Va., city council member who ended opening prayers before meetings with “in Jesus’ name.” The court said the prayer ending is not protected by the First Amendment because it involved government speech and not the council member’s individual right to expression. The Supreme Court turned down a request to hear the case in January.

Here are a few other cases involving prayer and government meetings:

-In 2008, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Cobb County Commissioners meetings can include prayer as long as different religions are represented and one religion isn’t promoted.

-In Dec. 2005, a federal district judge ruled that the Indiana House of Representatives couldn't mention Jesus’ name or proselytize a religious faith in prayers before legislative sessions.

-In 2005, the 4th Circuit ruled that a Wiccan priestess could not give a prayer before a Chesterfield County board of supervisor’s meeting in Virginia. The appeals court ruled that “Chesterfield has aspired to non-sectarianism and requested that invocations refrain from using Christ's name or, for that matter, any denominational appeal.” Prior to that in 2004, the 4th Circuit issued an opinion in a similar case in South Carolina. A Wiccan priestess sued the town of Great Falls for opening meetings with prayers that specifically named Jesus Christ and the court ruled that this was an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.