My mayor is promoting a week of prayer.
Offline Today I learned that my mayor is promoting a week of prayer for my city. This is what I wrote for him. I'm glad to hear the FFRF has already filed a complaint.
Dear Mr. Mayor,
I have recently learned of you endorsing a week of prayer for the city of Modesto. As a resident of this city, I am concerned about your favoritism towards certain religions. As you know, not all religions pray. As a state employee, it is not your role to endorse certain religious practices. There are also people in your community who are not theists. Some of us think talking to supernatural entities to be quite silly. I believe adults who promote such things set a bad example for children. It is not a virtue to have faith and to believe things without sufficient evidence. Let private individuals engage in whatever they like, but it is not your place as a mayor to promote specific religions. I hope you take this into consideration.
Brian Duncan
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Is he using city resources to promote this?
Hey, the same thing with the Mayor happened to me, last year FFRF sent me a Email stating that the Mayor of Philadelphia was conducting prayers before every start of the day in a Philadelphia Conference room (which is City own property,hence public property) so they asked me to send him a Email stating my objection to prayers before city work, anyway, I wrote them a well thought out Email, ( FFRF ask me to be courteous), and as far as I know, prayers have stopped. So the moral of the story is ' Keep on Truckin' and be nice to some people (not all) .
Signature ? How ?
You guys are being politically correct. How dare you suggest that a hockey rink not be used to play soccer. This is a Christian nation and you should sit at the back of the bus and know your place, even though you are a legal citizen.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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I haven't read anything to indicate that state funds are used to promote this. Here's a copy of the email I received.
April 11, 2011
The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter objecting to Mayor Jim Ridenour of Modesto issuing a prayer proclamation and declaring a "Week of Prayer for Modesto," March 27 - April 1. The event, also called "The Mayor's Call to Prayer," was organized at the mayor's request by City Ministries Network, a Christian organization. The mayor issued a similar proclamation in 2010, which FFRF objected to as well. Even though the 2011 "Week of Prayer" has ended, the mayor is likely to repeat this in the future, so he needs to receive negative feedback.
The 2011 proclamation, issued on March 22, "implore[s] Almighty God, through His grace and mercy, to renew the vitality of our city's economy, revitalize the quality of our schools, restore safety to our neighborhoods and reverse the moral decline in our communities . . . " It "encourage[s] . . . citizens to pray for God's blessings in this time of need."
copies of your messages and correspondence by e-mail at .
Rebecca Markert, FFRF senior staff attorney, wrote to Mayor Ridenour: "Such prayer proclamations and your participation in these activities violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution . . . [which] prohibits government sponsorship of religious messages. . . . The proclamation and the week's events organized by City Ministries Network send a message that you as Mayor and the City of Modesto prefer and endorse the Christian faith."
Please send a message to (or call) the mayor, objecting to his participation in the "Week of Prayer for Modesto" and official mayoral prayer proclamations. You may also wish to send a letter to the editor to the Modesto Bee (see contact info below).
Please do not forward this Action Alert to city officials or media. For maximum effectiveness, write as an individual and not as someone responding to an Action Alert. We are pleased to receive "blind" ("BCC"