Texas legislator offers inclusive prayer, gets brow-tweeten
Posted: 5:02 p.m. Saturday, June 1, 2013
Herman: A prayer for and of inclusion
By Ken Herman - American-Statesman Staff
In my February column about the preponderance of Christ-centered invocations at the Texas Legislature, Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, complained respectfully about the lack of inclusiveness in some of those prayers.
Last week, on the final Sunday of the regular legislative session, Howard, a Unitarian Universalist, did something about it. What she did, if you’ll pardon the expression, is practice what she preached. It did not go unnoticed or uncriticized.
----snip----
“Thank you Mr. Speaker, members and our friends in the gallery,” she said on the only Sunday the House was in session this year. “It is customary for this body to begin each day of session with an invocation, a time to seek guidance and inspiration regarding the business before us. We gather here as Baptists and Presbyterians, Catholics and Jews, Buddhists and Quakers, Unitarian Universalists and those with no religious tradition but with a faith nonetheless in our common humanity.
“We are as diverse as the people and the landscape of this great state and we are fortunate to live in a country where we have the freedom to exercise the religion of our choosing while also being free from having any religion imposed upon us, where we can come together around our common values of equality and justice and working for the common good.
“I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve with each of you and am humbled by the privilege we’ve been given to represent our fellow Texans, all Texans, each and every one.
“So before we begin the important business of this next-to-last day of the 83rd legislative session, we hope, let us collectively observe a moment of silence while we individually look to whatever source we choose and invoke guidance and inspiration for the work before us and the decisions we will be making.”
There was then 15 seconds of silence during which lawmakers and visitors were free to pray, or not pray, as they chose.
“Thank you members,” Howard said in closing.
When it was over, a few House members felt the need for an impromptu, post-invocation prayer session. Rep. Scott Turner, R-Frisco, was among them.
----snip----
Austinite Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity, tweeted that Howard “does not provide prayer, but moment of silence opening the next-to-last day of session. #disappointing”.
Robbie Cooper of Spicewood (who identifies himself on Twitter thusly: “I survive almost entirely on hate & caffeine and sometimes whiskey; An unapologetically Conservative biker and US Army veteran; To the Right of You”) replied to Venable’s tweet by saying, “Just another Godless Democrat.”
Entire piece at link:
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/opinion/herman-a-prayer-for-and-of-inclusion/nX7SK/?icmp=statesman_internallink_textlink_apr2013_statesmanstubtomystatesman_launch
= new reply since forum marked as read
