By Joy E. Cressler/Staff Writer
BURLESON — Formal prayer before city council meetings is resuming at Burleson City Hall.
Mayor Ken Shetter suspended invocations before council meetings a few weeks ago. He cited a recent decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana that barred prayer before government meetings.
The court, however, agreed last month to rehear the case and could reverse its decision.
“We will go back to having prayers, which we were going to do anyway after coming up with a process for inviting everyone in our faith community to participate in the opening prayer,” Shetter said.
City Councilman Stuart Gillaspie, who previously spoke against Shetter’s move, said he was pleased with the city’s decision to restore invocations.
“I think staying the course is the right direction for us to go,” Gillaspie said. “It’s our tradition, and our fathers’ tradition, and it’s what generations before that intended.”
Gillaspie said he appreciated the concern residents showed and the “overwhelming” support he received. State Rep. Rob Orr, R-Burleson, phoned Gillaspie to voice his support for him and agreed that formal prayer should take place at the beginning of any public meeting.
“We start each morning with prayer in the state Legislature for wisdom and guidance for our leaders,” Orr said. “If it’s good enough for us at the state level, it should be good for all. Cities are a political subdivision of the state. I’d be very disappointed if our cities chose to do something different.”
In lieu of prayers spoken aloud by invited local clergy or council members in Burleson, Shetter had been asking for a moment of silence at the beginning of Burleson City Council meetings for the last two or three meetings.
The mayor said he would rather allow people to pray the way they wanted than trying to shape their prayers so as not to reflect specific religions, as the original court decision had said.
The court will rehear the matter with oral arguments scheduled to be heard the week of May 21.
According to court documents filed Feb. 9, “a member of the court in active service requested a poll on the petitions for rehearing before a full court, and a majority of the judges voted in favor of granting a rehearing.”
The plaintiffs and defendants in the Louisiana case asked for the rehearing. The plaintiff, the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the parent and schoolchildren who sued the Tangipahoa Parish School Board over the board’s invocations in October 2003, is asking for a legal standard that would bar all prayers at meetings to ensure that a school system doesn’t advance or inhibit religion, according to an article in The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La.
The school board wants a ruling that would exempt the board under the same guidelines that are reserved for Congress and state legislatures, allowing sectarian prayers as long as they don’t proselytize.
A U.S. District Court judge sided with the ACLU in February 2005, but the school board later appealed the decision to the 5th Circuit Court.
Joy E. Cressler can be reached at
817-645-2441, ext. 2329, or jcressler@trcle.com.com.
