ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Prayer Policy Needs Review

By arguing over the invocations delivered before City Council meetings, Tustin city fathers have damaged relations with the local clergy.

It began when Mayor Richard B. Edgar, following up on a memo issued by the city attorney, in effect asked clergymen not to mention deities or particular religions in their remarks before council meetings. The opinion was supposed to have been based on court decisions that specified which religious practices were permissible at government assemblies.

But many government bodies begin their deliberations with such invocations, and the city attorney made this more of a church-and-state issue than was necessary. If the city were going to split hairs, it would have been better off not to invite the clergy into council chambers in the first place.

Clergy reaction was predictable. The chairman of the city’s Interfaith Council said that limiting references to a deity would in effect “eliminate any Christianity out of prayer.” He and about 50 other clergy and residents fired off an angry letter to the mayor asking him to drop restrictions. Now two council members say they would support a reference to Jesus Christ in invocations.

What a mess. The council has been having enough trouble getting its work done lately without stumbling over the invocation. The city attorney should back off. And if the city and clergy can’t agree on some nondenominational wording that will make everyone happy, then drop the invocations altogether and get on with the agenda.