***Update***: Joshua Deaton and other members of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Atheists/Agnostics/Skeptics attended last night’s city council meeting to voice their opposition to the invocations.
Here is Joshua’s speech:
…
Bill Knight is the mayor of Greensboro, North Carolina and he’s decided to do away with moments of silence before city council meetings!
Good for him! Finally a mayor with some common sen—-Oh, Christ, he replaced it with something even worse:
The moment of silence at the beginning of the City Council meetings will be replaced by an invocation, something the mayor has the authority to include.
Tonight’s invocation will be a remembrance of veterans in honor of Memorial Day, Knight said. At future meetings, the invocations will be more akin to prayer.
“I think this adds a very distinctly America quality and a very necessary element,” he said. “We all believe in something. This is an opportunity to exercise that without infringing on the government-religion prohibition.”
Umm… this is a perfect example of “infringing on the government/religion prohibition.”
And what does he mean “we all believe in something”? Are atheists unamerican because we don’t believe in god?
Is Knight inviting Humanists to deliver an invocation? What’s the proportion of Christian speakers to non-Christian ones?
Are Greensboro taxpayers ready to pay for the inevitable lawsuit?
This is a problem just waiting to happen.
Meanwhile, I don’t know know about Councilperson Robbie Perkins, but I like him already:
[Perkins] said the invocation is a move in the wrong direction. “Why do we want to do this?” he said. “Are we returning to the 1950s?”
(via Religion Clause)