How to pray?

Part of my editorial on the prayer issue at City Hall. And here's the top of the story I wrote about the issue, which I find fascinating and to be a good discussion about a core debate - the role of religion in government.

I've found it interesting, and pleasant, that a fair number of online comments support Tamara Nile's efforts to have a more universal prayer and her concerns that the city not give the impression that it favors one religion over another.

I expected more outrage at her concern that Jesus' name not be invoked in the prayer. That part was kind of buried in her proposal, and hasn't been sensationalized.

I think that, in the end, the prayer before the commission meeting starts is less important that the spiritual place of individual commissioners. The problem with it is that even those most folks would call themselves Christian, others would not, or would call themselves something else. The city represents EVERYBODY, and thus condoning or inviting a religious-specific prayer can make people of other faiths/beliefs feel unrepresented or in a position of inequality.

I think the commissioners on the board right now would not do that, but what if the LDS church wanted to pray to Joseph Smith, or a Wiccan coven leader asked to pray for the commission. You couldn't, I don't think, exclude them.