A narrowly split Alameda City Council voted Tuesday night to halt its long-standing practice of starting meetings with a prayer.
The 3-2 decision was met with a figurative “amen” from opponents of the invocations, who maintained that the religious ritual had no business in a public governmental session.
“I’m a very staunch supporter of the separation between religion and government,” said Rabbi Allen Bennett of Alameda’s Temple Israel, who questioned the constitutionality of sponsoring sectarian prayers at public meetings.
While the twice-monthly invocations were technically open to spiritual leaders of any faith, in practice the opening prayers were most often delivered by ministers from fundamentalist Christian churches, according to several speakers at a two-hour public hearing that preceded the vote.
“There’s no way I would have done it,” Bennett said of the practice.
Alameda was the last city in the East Bay to open its council meetings with prayers, according to Mayor Ralph Appezzato, who cast one of the three votes to discontinue the custom. Though he identified himself as a practicing Catholic, Appezzato told the crowd of about 60 people that “this council chamber is not a church.”
Speakers on both sides of the issue brought up the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Supporters of the invocations said recent world events demonstrate the need for prayer while foes said they underscore the risks of mixing religion with government.
“Religion can be both powerful and dangerous,” said the Rev. Roger Bauer of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Alameda. Bauer, who opposed the invocations, set a tone for the evening by leading the assembled group in a moment of silence instead of prayer.
One woman who favored keeping the prayers asked the council to consider holding a citywide vote on the issue.
The council decided to make its own decision instead. Voting to keep the invocations were council members Al DeWitt and Barbara Kerr. “For myself, I’m just a prayer guy,” DeWitt told the audience. “I’m going to have to stick with the good old way we’ve been doing it all my life.”
But DeWitt was outnumbered on the council as well as by speakers who addressed the elected officials. Among those who urged the council to discontinue the prayers were members of Temple Israel, representatives of the city’s Social Service Human Relations Board, several Catholic and Christian residents, and a representative of a local association of atheists.
The council’s practice, a steady stream of critics maintained, was exclusionary, inappropriate — and likely illegal.
“I very strongly believe in God,” said Alameda resident Doris Broudy. “I pray every night. I don’t need to do that when I come to a city council meeting.”
Jasmine Weiss Tokuda said she was “shocked” when she came to her first city council meeting and heard the invocation. “The moment someone says, ‘In the name of the son or Jesus,’ it’s not my prayer anymore,” she said. The sectarian prayers “disenfranchise people who are not of that faith.”
During the summer, the Social Service Human Relations Board recommended that the prayers be abolished and replaced with a moment of silence.
With the prayers now gone, the council could not agree whether to observe that moment of silence, start another practice or do nothing at all. By a 4-1 vote, members decided to take up the matter at a future session. Appezzato dissented, saying he thought the issue should first go back to the social services board.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said the mayor, clearly frustrated, after the meeting.
Bennett said he was pleased with the “respectful” tone of the meeting, “even though there was obvious deep disagreement between supporters and opponents.”
Though apparently outnumbered, several speakers passionately appealed to the council to keep the prayers.
“The God police are here,” warned one woman. John Pillitiere, an elder at the Alameda Chapel, told the council that “you’re accountable to a higher authority, even higher than the electorate. You must not base your decision tonight on the fact that people have been offended.”
Temple Israel member Elaine Kofman applauded the council vote. “I’m glad they got rid of it,” she said. “I feel that no one should be made to feel uncomfortable by prayer in this house that belongs to all of us.”