The first secular invocation at a public meeting in Alabama

October 14, 2014 • 7:04 am

According to North Country Public Radio (a subsidiary of NPR), an atheist delivered the opening “invocation” at a city council meeting last month in Huntsville, Alabama. It was the first time in the history of the state (as far as we know) that a secular invocation opened a public meeting in that state.

If you click on the screenshot below, you can hear Jeannie Robison, the executive director of the Interfaith Mission Service (and an Episcopalian deacon) discussing the genesis of this event with Robin Young.  Of course our Official Website Secular Organization™, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, was involved in getting the City Council to agree to such an invocation.

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Here’s the invocation from a report at AL.com. The invocation was given by Kelly McCauley, a member of the board of directors of the North Alabama Freethought Association:

Dearly Beloved,
     When the ancients considered the values that were proper and necessary for the good governance of a peaceful, productive society, they brought to our minds the virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Moderation. These values have stood the test of time.
     In more recent days, an American style of governance has led to approbation for newer enlightened values; we celebrate diversity, we enjoy protections of our freedoms in a Constitutional Republic, and we dearly value egalitarianism – equal protection of the law.
     So now let us commence the affairs that are presented to our community. Let Doubt and Skepticism and Inquiry be on our lookout when caution is the appropriate course. But also let innovation and boldness take point when opportunities for excellence appear on our horizon.
     In this solemn discourse, let’s remember Jefferson’s words: “…that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
     Let it be so.
The comments at AL.com (which found, surprisingly, that 67% of people polled favored allowing nonbelievers to give invocation), are a mix, but with a surprisingly high proportion of favorable comments. There are rationalists in that deeply Southern state.
Here’s a good exchange:
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I love it: “bloody gobbets of meat”! You go, Blake!
. . . and one bizarre one (I’ve omitted the links, including a video, but you can see them at AL.com):
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h/t: Howie

35 thoughts on “The first secular invocation at a public meeting in Alabama”

  1. Love this: “….please spare me the brain explanation”. People will believe what they want to believe. Thank you for identifying yourself as someone incapable of participating in a modern society.

    1. Refusing to consider scientific explanations, but insisting that we accept a hearsay anecdote about a patient in pain as evidence of hell? Sounds fair.

      1. Recently, I got into an unplanned discussion with a christian who stressed multiple times that he is a studied biologist. He was a very nice, intelligent and open-minded person, but his only answer to my question “how do you know?” were his personal anecdotal experiences and innermost feelings. He evidently didn’t use his professional scepticism on his own beliefs.

        (This is my first comment here, so hello to all of you.)

    2. I heard a radio talk show host the other day say, “Whether you believe god made us or that science did . . . .”

      My wife and kids often roll their eyes when I get too specific about something, but the sloppiness of a statement like that is a big part of the problem in my opinion.

      If your thinking is that sloppy, and you brush it off as not important, who cares, something sorta like that, you are helping to create conditions that lead to the Oprahs, Chopras, Roves, Becks, etc., etc., of the world defining the beliefs of sizable chunks of the population.

      1. The “Oprahs, Chopras, Roves, & Becks” sound like a class of sub-atomic particles called Morons. These particles plow through space, refusing to be perturbed by Higgs fields or by electric charge.

        1. Yes, Karl Rove. I am referring to the age old tactic he dusted off and made a key part of the Republican party’s strategy. Boldly telling the public the most obvious and ridiculous lies boldly and often, and about half of the public believing them.

          2. Reagrdless of his denials, if you listen any Republican campaign message, it’s lies all the way down, the bigger the better.

            People love to be lied to. At least tea-baggers in the US do.

    3. This makes sense to me.

      “How did humans figure out how to get to the moon?” Please, spare me the brain explanation.

      “How did we cure polio?” Please, spare me the brain explanation.

      “How did we create this network over which we can communicate at light speed with people we’d have no chance of meeting in any previous generations?” Please, spare me the brain explanation.

      GODDIDDIT!

  3. “There are rationalists in that deeply Southern state.”

    In this southern state of Tennessee, it was recently announced that we would be hosting the American Atheists convention next year. Surprisingly, most of the comments on the Facebook page were pretty rational, even from the theists. It does bring hope.

  4. RE the bears: If you’re going to mock the Bible, get it right. That was the prophet Elisha, not Isaiah.

  5. Big steps in my small state! Huntsville recently refused a Wiccan invocation causing quite a stir. I am very surprised and encouraged the powers that be allowed a secular invocation. There is hope yet!

  6. Why do we need invocations, prayers and pledges to open these meetings in the first place?

  7. The people that have near death experiences in India see Yama the god of death, and an assorted variety of Hindu deities. Ergo, Shiva.

  8. I was also struck by him saying “people who experienced clinical death” then later referring to these as “near-death experiences”. Either they died or they didn’t. If they died, surely it’s not a near-death experience. If it was possible to put a time on the hallucination/vision/whatever it would be seen it happened when the person was alive, not dead. If religies could prove it came from the time the person was actually dead, they might be on to something. I think it’s extremely unlikely they’ll ever meet this test.

  9. I lvoe those fools who point to NDEs.

    One minor little problem there folks: They didn’t die. If they had, they would have no tale to tell. It seems so blatantly obvious.

    But never underestimate the stupidity of people accustomed to blind following.

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