A Florida pagan was given the opportunity to offer the invocation at an Escambia County Commission meeting Thursday, but one commissioner wouldn\u2019t stick around to hear it.<\/p>\n
By law, the commission had to allow David Suhor, a self-described Agnostic Pagan Pantheist who worships nature, to give an invocation, according to ABC affiliate WEAR-TV.<\/p>\n
When Suhor recited the pagan prayer in song calling of the directions north, east, south, and west, Commissioner Wilson Robertson walked out.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople may not realize it,\u201d Robertson told WEAR. \u201cBut when we invite someone, a minister to pray, they are praying for the county commissioners, for us to make wise decisions and I\u2019m just not going to have a pagan or satanic minister pray for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suhor said he wanted \u201cother people to experience what it\u2019s like when I go to a meeting and am asked to pray against my conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe boards have had prayers and they\u2019ve been almost exclusively of the majority religion, so I wanted to offer an alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suhor has been before the county commission previously, as well as the Pensacola City Council, but the Escambia County School Board has refused his request.<\/p>\n
School Board member Jeff Bergosh explained his stance on his personal blog site, saying this:<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, should the majority of persons in attendance at one of our meetings really have to listen to a satanic verse? What if a \u201cWitch Doctor\u201d comes to the podium with a full-on costume, chicken-feet, a voodoo doll and other associated over-the-top regalia? It could easily get out of hand, so far as I can tell\u2026.(I wonder what our local media would say about this?)<\/p>\n
And I won\u2019t stay and listen if someone tries to be disrespectful like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Litigation could be in the works soon, as Suhor says he may sue on the grounds of discrimination against religion, adding that the board should consider a moment of silence instead of any prayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they should not be offering a prayer or sponsoring a prayer of any particular religion instead,\u201d he said. \u201cI think they should have an more exclusive moment of silence which allows anyone to pray according to their own conscience.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Conservative Lutherans, in particular those of the Wisconsin Synod, have long had problems with \u201cprayer fellowship.\u201d Isn\u2019t there some wisdom in that?<\/p>\n
In the case of Satanists, do we really want to ask the devil to help our elected officials?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t there enough of that already?<\/p>\n
If you believe that only Christian prayers should be allowed in official meetings, how can you justify that in light of the Constitutional requirements of religious liberty?<\/p>\n
If you believe that all prayers should be accepted, do we need to draw any lines?\u00a0 Is what the commissioner did a good solution, whereby people who are offended by a particular prayer can just leave?<\/p>\n
Or is there some kind of neutral civil religion that can acknowledge the state\u2019s Two Kingdoms reliance on a generic deity, without violating the principles of the spiritual kingdom?<\/p>\n
HT:\u00a0 Paul McCain<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We believe in freedom of religion, something that is becoming more and more important to Christians in light of the possibility of official suppression.\u00a0 Along with that comes the rights of non-Christian religions.\u00a0 Public governmental meetings are allowed to open with prayer, but that prayer cannot discriminate against the various religions. Recently, a member of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26,39,47],"tags":[503,3146,1870,2146],"class_list":["post-19939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-law","category-religions","category-theology","tag-civil-religion","tag-public-prayer","tag-religious-liberty","tag-syncretism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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