Published: July 12, 2009 10:16 am      

ACLU allegations about council prayers bring sharp responses

San Marcos — If Mayor Susan Narvaiz and the San Marcos City Council needed a boost to their self esteem, they got a good dose of it during the public comment period of last week’s meeting.

One after another, local pastors and members of their congregations flocked to the microphone to extol the hard work of the council and encourage them to continue the habit of starting each meeting with a prayer.

Mark Maniscalo thanked the officials for their sacrifice of time and energy, and then said that his “firm believe is that just as a man can be identified by his character, so can a city be identified by its character.”

Maniscalo said having a prayer introduces “Godliness” into council meetings. “We are one nation under God,” he said.

Gary Gilbert weighed in thusly: “The God of the universe set things up where spirits cannot become involved in the lives of men unless they are invited. When we pray we’re inviting the God of the universe,” he said. “If you don’t ask you will not receive.”

The comments, were prompted by a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State that alleged most of the prayers offered at local city council meetings between September 2008 and May 2009 violated the U.S. Constitution.

Though the Supreme Court has held that prayer before public meetings is legal, the court defined that as “legislative prayer,” essentially non sectarian.

The organizations say many of the prayers offered at San Marcos council meetings were instead sectarian in nature, in essence using language specific to the Christian religion.

“Of the 13 meetings where the prayer was included in the online video, only one featured non-sectarian prayer,” said the letter, dated June 15. “Every other prayer either began or ended with an invocation of the name of Jesus Christ.”

The council discussed the letter in executive session and instructed City Attorney Michael Cosentino to develop a “prayer policy” and bring it back for future consideration.

Cosentino said at Tuesday’s meeting that his understanding was that the city clerk’s office would continue to invite “clergy from diverse religions” and that the guidelines for before-meeting prayers “do not attempt to advance any one religion or disparage any other religion — to not proselytize or convert anyone.”

Terrell Flemming, an attorney with the ACLU in Austin, also took the podium to stress that not all prayer, just sectarian prayer, violates Constitutional guidelines.

Still, one speaker said that “those who show up” should be able to hear whatever kind of prayer they want.

Lockhart resident Peggy Reimenschneider, who identified herself as a “potential future resident” of San Marcos said, “Anyone who does not want to pray to our Christian God can wait in patience and tolerance.”

“Any person or persons offended by the exercise of our faith and our Christian God is welcome to take residence in any nation that is less offensive to their religious preference,” she continued.

Cosentino did not indicate when the his recommendations would be made to the full council.