City Council invocations may divide area residents more than they inspire us

An invocation controversy arose in San Marcos on May 16 when a Satanist leader gave the invocation at a meeting of the City Council.

The matter was seen as so significant by some that two members of the Council appeared to absent themselves from the dais during the invocation, many people offered their own certified Christian prayers during the Public Comment period later in the meeting, and there was an organized protest by Christians outside City Hall against the Satanic invocation prior to the meeting.

In the invocation, both Lucifer and Satan were mentioned once.

The main point of the invocation, however, was an appeal to evidence- based reason, an irony that seemed to escape the speaker, as well as the protesters.

The history of these invocations may be helpful to understand the controversy.

Many people in San Marcos may assume that City Council meetings have always been opened with an invocation, but this is not the case.

The San Marcos Code of Ordinances shows that no invocation was included as a part of the order of business at council meetings until that was added in 2007, when Susan Narvaiz was mayor.

On April 17, 2007, the City Council approved several changes in the order of business for its meetings, including adopting the insertion of an 'Invocation,' which was to be included after the Roll Call, or if the council began the meeting with an Executive Session, immediately after returning to the regular open meeting.

In 2009, an amendment to the official order of business was passed, which provided that invocations might also be given after a Workshop or Presentation held right after Roll Call, if those were scheduled.

When she was Mayor, Susan Narvaiz was known as an Evangelical Christian.

Many, perhaps most, of the invocations given during her terms in office were prayers offered by evangelical ministers and pastors.

Gradually, other mainline Protestant ministers gave invocation prayers, and at least one invocation was given by a Rabbi.

Eventually, invocations were given occasionally by a Native American from her tradition and from Unitarian ministers or leaders who represented non-Christian views.

On two or three occasions, non-religious individuals gave invocations from their secular perspectives.

According to the Supreme Court, prayerful invocations are permissible so long as they are not limited to religious leaders or are used to proselytize. Among the purposes of such invocations 'are to lend gravity to public proceedings.' Anyone may have words to say that would lend gravity to a City Council meeting.

The Supreme Court refers to such invocation prayers as 'ceremonial prayer,' a term that should offend all sincerely religious people who believe that they are communicating directly with their God, not for some ceremonial reason, but to express their beliefs, as a sincere religious practice.

Any thinking person would not question that there is a higher power that can be acknowledged anywhere at any time.

Our disagreement concerns what that higher power is.

For me, it is nature and natural laws, for which evidence is abundant; for others it has been belief in one or more of thousands of gods created by the minds of humankind, often because of natural phenomena that were little understood.

As one Justice has noted, we are a nation of many religions protected by the Constitution’s religion clauses, which seek to safeguard this country’s social fabric from religious conflict.

The Christian protesters at City Hall in May demonstrated that the invocation practice of the San Marcos City Council is a divisive, disruptive, and alienating feature of public civic meetings.

Not only that, but invocations are unnecessary for the proper conduct of city business.

They were introduced in 2007 to further the interests of a particular strain of Christianity.

They should be abolished in the interest of returning to the business of governing, rather than pushing any religious expression where it is not needed.