Two days ago I reported that Mayor Chris Marley, mayor of Chino Valley, Arizona (and a “part-time Baptist minister”, whatever that is), has repeatedly begun the town council meetings with a Christian prayer. After promising that he’d stop the process pending a discussion of the prayer issue, Marley reneged on his promise (i.e. lied) and again praised Jesus at a meeting on February 9. A rabbi in attendance, Adele Plotkin, objected vociferously, whereupon Plotkin had her heaved out of the meeting (the link includes a video).
A little bird told me that both the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation have warned Mayor Marley that they have to stop this unconstitutional practice now. That was confirmed by the local paper. Do you think the council will listen?
Hell, no! It’s Arizona, Jake. As the Chino Valley Review notes, they’re standing firm:
Chino Valley has been ending its invocation with “praying in Jesus’ name” for years. The controversy began on Dec. 8 when a Chino Valley resident, Sherry Brown, objected to the practice.
Marley said he’s drawing a line in the sand and the rest of the Town Council backed him up, saying they have no intention to change their invocation.
After the Mayor chucked out Rabbi Plotkin, the council voted to stick with Jesus. The mayor said this (my emphasis):
“Unfortunately, the content of the invocations offered here in Chino Valley has become the subject of some contention, so we – your Town Council – will deal with it,” Marley said in an opening statement. “Our Bill of Rights protects us against the establishment of religion by the state, and yet it would appear that secular humanism with its mantra of political correctness has become just that, the state established religion which the First Amendment was supposed to protect us against.
“Our oath of office requires that we defend the Constitution, and yet we are being asked to give up our right to freely worship according to the dictates of conscience. As a nation, we have already lost a number of our freedoms: The right to peacefully assemble and our protection against unreasonable search and seizure are already gone, and a number of others are being stripped away as we speak.
“I can’t speak for the rest of the Council, but I believe it is time to draw a line in the sand, at least for me it is.”
After discussing eight different options on how to handle the invocation at future Town Council meetings, the council voted that they would make no changes to the current tradition, which is a member of council gives the invocation without any guidance if they wish to be in the rotation to do so.
“I believe that we as a council have every right to continue to offer the invocations,” Marley said.
I’m always amazed how state imposition of religion, as the town council is doing, is justified as adhering to the First Amendment. The founding fathers, who voted against opening the Constitutional Convention with a prayer, would surely disagree. Note too that Mareley argues that by opposing public Christian prayer, his detractors are trying to make secular humanism the state established religion! It’s hard to avoid calling people names when I hear crazy arguments like that. That is, “no religion” is characterized as a religion!
And the “right to freely worship” means, chowderheads, anywhere but at governmental functions! Why can’t Preacher Marley restrict his prayers to his house or to his Baptist Church? For some reason, these people feel that their “right” to pray means a “right” to impose their religious beliefs on others in a formal government setting. Would he sit quietly if a Muslim offered up a prayer to Allah? Or if a Satanist proffered a prayer? I doubt it.
What will happen? The die is cast:
“I want the citizens to be aware, us standing our ground, if this is challenged, it could cost the town money to defend it,” Council member Corey Mendoza said. “Personally, I’m willing to do that. But we are representatives of the town, so speak up when you get a chance and we’ll unite around this.”
Yes, it will cost them considerable money if there’s a lawsuit, and if they don’t give in, I suspect there will be. Although such suits require someone with “standing” to initiate them, and there’s a certain peeved rabbi who, I think, does have that standing.
h/t: Dennis D.
Wouldn’t that make him a “half-tist”?
He’s a minister for people who are part-time Baptists. Seems pretty clear to me.
What? So they’re teetoal and faithful except on days when they’re getting blitzed at the local cathouse?
This is exactly the nonsense I think of whenever someone complains about government waste. A simple critical view of the situation should reveal the error of the Mayor’s thinking
One has to wonder whether they have legal counsel to prevent this sort of idiocy. If they do, and they ignored advice related to what is proper, the city will pay a hefty price for stupidity.
To me it sounds like Marley doesn’t realize that HE is the state in this case. He seems to view the council as a group of private citizens, and it’s the state (the courts) telling him how he can’t practice his religion.
That’s all I can figure anyway.
I think you’re right – it often seems to me that USians, especially in the Bible Belt, only consider the federal government to be Government. State, local, schools etc are their private fiefdoms.
When you are an elected representative, your job is to represent ALL your constituents, not just the ones that share your religious beliefs or lack thereof.
If you believe that a prayer before a meeting will help you do a better job representing EVERYBODY (i.e. not just your fellow religious), by all means pray, but in private. Personally, I think a prayer, in this case to Jesus, reminds participants of their commitment to Him, and makes them likely to favour co-religionists.
I think it also excludes those who don’t share that particular religion or have no religion, and it may make them act with undue animosity towards anything to do with the religion.
And now the citizens of Chino Valley will enroll in a very expensive course in how the 1st Amendment works.
Good luck teaching those who refuse to be educated because they think themselves already educated.
Whether they learn or not is uncertain. But they will be paying the cost of the lesson, regardless.
Agreed. The sad side of this is the diversion of taxpayer dollars from much more pressing needs.
And they seem immune to pointing out that jesus himself said do not pray out loud in public… they act as if you are speaking Martian. Their hypocrisy is amazing, but not in a good way.
And in this case, yesterday, Jesus specifically told them, the Chino school board, to stop it:
“Judge Jesus G. Bernal of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered the board to immediately stop its school-sponsored prayers.”
That’s the California Chino. The current story is about the Arizona Chino. I’d be confused myself if I weren’t in Prescott, about ten minutes away from the Chino referred to.
A pair of Chinos!
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I’ll bet there are no cities named Pants, though…more’s the pity.
I find that the first eight verses of the Bible are pretty general ignored.
“…and yet it would appear that opposition to state established religion with its mantra of opposing practices that establish state religion has become just that: state established religion.”
Or better:
“…and yet it would appear that those who do not collect stamps with their mantra of not collecting stamps have become just that: stamp collectors.”
What absolute dumbfuckery.
I’m glad you posted that.
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Have you seen Phil lately?
“As a nation, we have already lost a number of our freedoms: The right to peacefully assemble and our protection against unreasonable search and seizure are already gone, and a number of others are being stripped away as we speak.”
Holy crap! I guess the news media failed to notice this since I have not seen anything about the loss of these rights reported.
I suspect this moron has watchted too many dystopia type movies and mistaken them for reality.
Well, the unreasonable search and seizure has some legs… what with massive warrantless wiretapping and so on. Of course, these chowderheads probably voted, and continue to vote, for the people who are the biggest champions of unreasonable search and seizure.
They are like the GOP supporter I heard on the radio this morning hoping that Trump will raise the minimum wage. WTF?
It’s clear that politics has devolved into 99% tribal identity and < 1% actual policy or practice.
I have no idea what he's talking about with the peacefully assemble bit… is he talking about the Oregon terrorists? I hope not, but fear so.
Arizona’s own Barry Goldwater would not have stood for this. He was one of the conservatives preaching limited government wbo was consistent in his application of this principle.
There is something Orwellian (and possibly Falwellian) in the way these folks redefine words like “freedom”. No doubt they regard the rabbi as a shill for secular humanism.
Orwellian doublespeak comes naturally to fundamentalists. It took me quite a while to realize that when my sect said, “We relentlessly search our beliefs to see if they are true” they meant “We will relentlessly enforce our received dogma against even the faintest whiff of unorthodoxy”. I can still recall a little lightbulb going on when I realized that “The Truth” was a different thing than truth, or the things that are true. They were “in search of The Truth” in the sense that they were building an airtight bunker to house their dogma (a.k.a. The Truth) from any incursions of merely true things.
“Orwellian doublespeak comes naturally to fundamentalists.”
Bizarre interpretations and redefining words is the norm in revealed religions. That is why more than 45,000 different Christian sects exist. And also why a collection of primitive flat Earth writings became the words of an ultimate magician that is not to be doubted.
Yet again theists use the bizarro world definition of the phrase “politically correct” to support their ridiculous stance.
General Agreement and minor correction.
Agreement: A good number of politicians are clueless when understanding how the “free exercise” clause and the “non-establishment” clause interrelate, even though there exists extensive court precedence on the issue (for original intent I would recommend Madison’s notes on the convention and Maier’s “Ratification”). This is a case that is going cost Chino Valley residents valuable tax dollars without – pun intended – a prayer of winning.
Minor correction: During the Constitutional Convention, the members didn’t actually vote against an opening prayer. When Franklin proposed the motion, it was decided to table the motion and it was never brought to the floor again. It’s a minor difference but still a difference.
Yes, and the tendency of the group, whenever Franklin made additional comments during the meet, was to take them and give them thought and a good burial. Franklin’s health was in pretty poor shape by this time. I believe they had prisoners from nearby carry him into the meetings on a special chair. Kind of like they would carry kings of Egypt around.
I am certain that their interpretation of the bible is as tendentious as their interpretation of the Constitution. If the City Council is sued, I think the City should sue the individual members for the cost.
Doc,
I agree with you in principle. However, there is a long standing precedent that a public official, acting in good faith (and yes, I use that term advisedly) cannot be sued for for their public actions. Having said that, there is still the ballot box. When law suits were costing the people of Dover and Texas, they threw the offenders out of office.
Yeah, you’re right. How about Misfeasance?
I would call it that. But again, the qualified immunity defense under U.S. law is pretty steep slope to climb. I’m not sure any organization would want to invest in such a log shot.
If the city attorney advised that they were on shaky legal ground, that might undercut claims of acting in good faith and thereby nullify qualified immunity. I look forward to the news of a court ordering the council to knock it off.
I’d sure be interested to know what the town attorney has to say about this . . .
Christians really hate separation of church and state.
In the good ole’ times, it was protection of Church A from Church B. But the rise of secularism has led to the protection of Church N+1, and they hate this. Why? Because:
1. It makes secularism Queen Bee: capable of admonishment, but immune from separation since it is not a religion.
2. It re-confirms that Divine Belief X is no different than Divine Belief Y: an equality that drives them nuts.
It always seems odd to me, since we have many legal examples to clarify separation of church and state, yet it still becomes necessary for someone in the room to complain before something can be done about something that is already illegal. I’m sure the legal folks at FFRF could explain this question. Other illegal occurrences do not require this?
Persecution trolling.
I factchecked your claim that the founding fathers voted not to open the Continental Congress with a prayer. There was some objection to doing that, on the excellent grounds that it might be incompatible with our religious diversity, but it was eventually approved. An opening prayer was delivered by a Rev Jacob Duche in 1774.