Oneida County adopts resolution allowing prayers at board meetings

After a debate that revived old and lingering questions about prayer at government meetings, the Oneida County Board of Supervisors at its most recent meeting took what might or might not be called decisive action.

That is to say, those attending future county board meetings or watching on YouTube might or might not see a county board member offer a prayer or invocation.

 It all depends on whether any county board member wishes to offer one, and whether the county board chairperson wants to let her or him do so.

The board adopted a resolution brought forward by supervisor Jim Winkler that was amended on the floor, which would allow a county board member to offer a prayer/invocation not exceeding 15 seconds, but only if the county board chairperson decides to ask if someone wants to offer one. 

If not, the usual moment of silence at the beginning of meetings would be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

However, the prayer/invocation would follow the moment of silence if the board chairperson asks if any county board member would like to say one, and if someone volunteers. 

If more than one board member wanted to offer a prayer, the chairperson could select only one to do so.

The vote was 15-4 to adopt the resolution, with supervisors Billy Fried, Diana Harris, Linnaea Newman, and Russ Fisher voting no.

Supervisors Tommy Ryden and Anthony Rio were absent.

The adopted resolution was a watering down from the resolution that Winkler originally presented. That resolution would have included county committees as well as the full board, and would have required the board or committee chairperson to ask if any member wished to offer a prayer/invocation. 

If a prayer or invocation was offered — still not to exceed 15 seconds — Winkler’s resolution intoned that the board or committee chairperson should ask if any other person would like to offer “a prayer to another god.” 

If not, the committee would proceed with its business.

That latter provision was deleted, as was the inclusion of county committees, and the board chairperson’s inquiry to board members about offering a prayer was changed from “shall” to “may.”

Old debate

At the outset of the discussion, Winkler, the author of the resolution, said he didn’t think it hurt anyone to pray to God and to ask for his wisdom in conducting their business, as well as for support and protection of the nation’s troops, not to mention support for the county’s emergency functionality.

“And that can be done within 15 seconds and then the chair can ask for another prayer toward another god, if so be, and, if not, move right on into our pledge of allegiance and conducting our business,” Winkler said.

Supervisor Mike Roach said he strongly believed that offering prayer at county board meetings would be helpful. 

“I’m a Christian, so I know that it’s going to be a benefit in my mind,” Roach said. “I strongly believe this. Our first president, before he was the president, he said it was impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

And when the constitution was being written and little headway was being made, Roach continued, Benjamin Franklin implored his countrymen to pray.

“‘We prayed every day during when we beat the British during the war and God served us,’” Roach said, paraphrasing Franklin’s plea. “He said, ‘Why don’t we do that in every meeting right now?’… They did pray every day after that. It was in our government to do that aloud.”

Roach said public prayer was needed at this point in our history.

“So all we’re asking is for 15 seconds to say a quick prayer to God,” he said. “If you are a Muslim or another religion, you’d have 15 seconds to pray to your God. And I think right now, I think it’s so important to put the private thoughts of not being able to pray aloud aside around this country.”

Supervisor Debbie Condado noted that many people prefer praying silently or in private but she said public prayer would serve a good purpose as well.

“In the last meeting when this was brought up, unbeknownst to me that I think there’s a lot of us here that are Christians and I think so many of us do pray in private and that’s all great,” Condado said. “The more of that the better. But I believe that if we can pray here just 15 seconds to ask the Holy Spirit in — we discuss very complicated issues sometimes, and I believe I need the guidance of the Holy Spirit and I think it could only be a good thing.”

Supervisor Robb Jensen cautioned of unintended consequences and suggested a compromise.

“So I have mixed emotions,” Jensen told his colleagues. “I have mixed emotions because even though what I’ve heard so far is Christianity, and not that any of us would do this, but Satanism can be viewed as a religion and are we prepared for someone to use 15 seconds [on that]. To me, it opens up Pandora’s box.”

When he was a school superintendent and in Rotary, Jensen said he was asked at every Rotary meeting to lead a prayer, but he also said it was a personal thing.

“I think extend the moment of silence for 30 seconds and everyone during that time is given an opportunity to do their own self-reflection, I think that’s appropriate,” he said.

Doing it her way

Newman said the issue was also a personal one for her.

“I don’t disagree with prayer at all,” she said. “But I do disagree with starting a meeting with it because my interpretation of the biblical reference is that prayer should be done in private, and say what you want about past historical references, but there’s been a lot of regret over some of those too.”

The one entity that no one was considering were those who are atheists, Newman said. 

“Now is atheism a religion?” she asked. “And what are we doing? I believe in attraction rather than a force. So what are we doing to those who are atheists if we force them to stand by and listen to our prayers? I would prefer that it be in private. I say my prayers in private and yes, I need the guidance of any outside entity that can help me understand and move better in the direction of progress for all.”

But Newman said she didn’t believe public prayer was the way to do it. 

“That’s my interpretation,” she said. “I’m all for maybe extending the quiet time at the beginning of the meeting, but I’m not okay with publicly declaring my personal beliefs or being forced to listen to a devil worshiper or anybody else’s personal beliefs.”

At one point before the resolution was amended, supervisor Steven Schreier observed that during previous discussions about the issue, the discussion applied only to the full county board but the resolution before the board included all committees.

“When did committees come into this?” Schreier asked. “I don’t remember any discussion. This was supposed to be about the county board meeting. So now at all the committee meetings, the chair can decide if they want to start the meeting and add that into there. And then of course I’m assuming they’re going to have to follow the guidelines that you’re suggesting about limiting the time of the prayer, asking the members of the committee.”

Schreier also observed that one line encouraged chairpersons to ask if any other “person” would like to off a prayer.

“Although that’s not really technically spelled out, but it says ‘should ask if any person would like to offer prayer,’” he said. “Well what does that mean? Any person in the room? … I’m going to have to assume that if you say any person, anyone here in attendance should be invited, not just the elected members of the board, unless of course that is your intent. That should be very specifically spelled out if you’re going to do that.”

Other supervisors echoed Jensen’s concerns about possibly opening Pandora’s box. 

Then, too, Harris said she had a question about what “before the meeting” referred to in the legal context, namely, was having a prayer “before the meeting” defined time-wise, as in before the meeting starts, or as “in front of the meeting.”

Corporation counsel Michael Fugle explained that what is important in avoiding violation of the establishment of religion clause in the constitution is following a practice that is consistent with Congress and state legislatures. 

“And what they do is, they call the meeting to order, and then there’s a prayer, and then they move on to their actual business,” he said.

Supervisor Connor Showalter was concerned about the definition of a prayer.

“If satanists say that prayer is defined as ritual or a sacrifice of some kind, in some sort of temple kind of thing, can we have a sacrifice?” Showalter asked. “Like Tom [Kelly] decides to sacrifice a chicken, is he allowed to do that? I’m just really concerned that this becomes something weird because people nowadays are very weird.”

Showalter pointed to Minocqua Brewing Company Kirk Bangstad as an example.

“He made a circus on something that’s very simple,” he said. “This is very simple. It’s a prayer. We should be able to come here, every one of us should be able to pray and say ‘God bless us,’ all of that. But does it turn into something crazy? Say Kirk hears that this passes and then he comes here and he says, ‘I’m going to pray to the great spaghetti monster …’” 

Roach said the resolution was not really Winkler’s resolution at all.

“This is God Almighty’s resolution in my opinion,” he said, adding that the chairman of the board would be able to monitor and control any craziness.

“It’s a simple thing,” he said. “If the chairman sees he’s going to do some kind of ritual, he doesn’t have to call on him, that’s what it says.”

The question was, would that be discrimination?

 Roach said no.

“There’s no discrimination because he can say, you and me raised your hand and he can call on one,” he said. “We can go through all the rules on these policies. That’s not discrimination.”

Roach said supervisors also shouldn’t be concerned about outlandish scenarios.

“There are more communities doing this than ever before and that’s what we need,” he said. “And to sit here and say, ‘Well I’m worried about a chicken,’ that’s ridiculous in my opinion. I think you’re overlooking at this. This is going to be a couple minutes and, if an atheist shows up, that is something that we’ll deal with because that’s fine. Fifteen seconds, what’s he going to do?”

Roach also used Bangstad as an example of potentially out-of-control behavior.

“[If] Bangstad goes on his rampage for minutes, that guy right there [board chairman Scott Holewinski] will be able to hit his hammer and he’ll stop it,” he said. “That’s why we put 15 seconds in.”

It was pointed out that Scottsdale, Arizona blocked a prayer by members of a Satanic Temple and were now being sued by the state. 

Roach said it was not an apt comparison.

“We wouldn’t block it,” he said. “For 15 seconds, why would you?”

Supervisors ultimately went on to amend and adopt the amended resolution.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.