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Letter: Debate over adding prayer heats up

The Columbian
Published: August 14, 2013, 5:00pm

Clark County Commissioners Tom Mielke and David Madore continue to betray American separation of church and state. They are actively damaging religion in Clark County. They have turned prayer into government red tape.

Mielke and Madore continue to reject recommendations that prayers be held before, not during, public meetings. They also reject that citizens can voluntarily pray during the “public comment” sessions. They also reject nonbelief. These hand-picked invocations are official products of the new religion-based Clark County government.

My tax money is paying for these prayers, so I have a right to complain about content.

Prayers generally begin with claims, unsupported by evidence or logic, about the nature of a deity. These are bare assertions. These same claims about God led Christians to slaughter other Christians in old Europe. These assertions about God caused the Puritan government to hang three Quakers in Boston around 1660.

President Eisenhower said “in a democracy debate is the breath of life.” Mielke and Madore think a god blesses them each meeting. Why should they debate us or even pay attention to us? Government officials should value reason and evidence-based critical thinking, not superstition and blind faith.

Dave Norris

Battle Ground

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