First Minister Invokes Jesus at Marathon City Council Session

 

Nondenominational: Lacking a denomination; not specific to a particular religion or sect.

At the end of the first invocation delivered to the Marathon city council since passing the resolution to do so, the minister, Pastor Nick Vaughn of the Marathon Church of God, concluded by saying, “We ask this in Jesus’ name.”

That is exactly what those who were concerned about public prayer thought might happen and that includes one of the members of the city council.

The council specifically voted to have a nondenominational prayer at the beginning of each session. Apparently Pastor Vaughn didn’t get the memo. In addition, the prayer occurred after the pledge of allegiance, the first item on the agenda.

When the council established the invocation, the plan was to have the prayer before the meeting actually started, i.e., before the pledge. That way, those who wish to pray could stand for the prayer and remain standing for the pledge. At the January 14 meeting those who had been standing for the pledge were forced to sit down if they didn’t want to participate in a public prayer. Some may have been embarrassed to do so.

In fact, the resolution they passed specifically says,

“Section 2: In order to solemnize proceedings of the Council. it is the policy of the Council to allow for an invocation or prayer to be offered before its meetings for the benefit of the Council.

Section 3: The invocation shall not be listed or recognized as an agenda item for the meeting or as part of the public business.”

It should also be noted that the newest member of the city council, Mark Senmartin, who was the only one who voted against prayer before council meetings, did not stand up for the prayer but, pointedly, sat down after the pledge of allegiance. He had pushed for a moment of silence but the council rejected that approach, four to one.

He wrote in an email, when contacted by The Blue Paper, that

“Unfortunately [a Christian prayer] is exactly what I said would happen. I am Catholic and the prayer to Jesus did not offend me but I have already had a Jewish friend ask “what was that all about?” With the fear of offending anyone by rejecting the meeting prayer, the Council completely overlooked any type of enforcement provision for sticking to the resolution. The other issue (that I warned against) is we have had only two responses to the request for someone to lead the prayer. You heard from one of them last night, so that leaves one for the next meeting. I was very clear that I do not want the same people over and over. We should be conducting city business not operating a church. I am going to contact the city attorney to see how to make sure these things are addressed.”

In an interview with Reverend Debra Andrew Maconaughey of St. Columba church in Marathon when the issue first arose she said,

“I have a particular point of view, which is Christian, but going as a chaplain you are not going as an Episcopal, Christian person. You have the prayer where you do believe in god. You are not saying there is no god. You are saying, if I were Jewish, I wouldn’t like it to have someone start of the prayer, “In the name of Jesus” because that is not where my faith’s tradition is. So that is a non-denominational prayer.”

It will be interesting to see if the council instructs the next minister, for it will surely be a minister since there are no other religious congregations in Marathon, about what the word nondenominational means. That said, however, the letter to the clergy that the city sent does not specify “non-denominational” but only that the minsters don’t proselytize.

The letter says,

“To maintain a spirit of respect and ecumenism the Council requests only that the invocation opportunity not he exploited as an effort to convert others to the particular faith of the invocation speaker nor to disparage any faith or belief different than that of invocation speaker.”

The council doesn’t make it easy to include other denominations. The resolution says that, “The Congregations List shall also include the name and contact information of any religious congregation located outside Marathon and Monroe County, if such religious congregation is attended by a resident or residents of Marathon or Monroe County and such resident requests the inclusion of said religious congregation by specific written communication to the City Clerk.”

So, Marathon Jews who travel to Tavernier or Key West to attend services will have to write to the city clerk to make sure their Rabbi’s name is on the list.

Furthermore, it will be interesting to see what attorney John Herin says about the denominational aspect of the prayer before the session and whether the policy will change as a result of concerns by Senmartin and, perhaps, others.