Praying for sanity at the state Capitol

From the here-we-go-again department: Yet another prayer controversy. This time, once again, in the Arizona House. It seems Rep. Athena Salman, a Tempe Democrat and atheist, offered the opening prayer during Tuesday’s floor session.

“In a nation often eager to be polarized in its views, allow us in this moment to recognize what we have in common: a deep-seated need to help create a more just and positive world,” she said. Naturally, someone was offended. Rep. Mark Finchem, an Oro Valley Republican, popped up, saying he didn’t think that Salman’s prayer was properly, well ... prayerful.

So he offered his own, in Jesus’ name.

After the requisite amens, House Majority Leader John Allen, R-Scottsdale, reminded his colleagues that House guidelines say that a prayer must be to a higher power.

“If you don’t want to pray,” he said, “don’t sign up for the prayer.”

I don’t know that I have ever once in my life agreed with Rep. John Allen. Ever. But ... he’s right.

According to Webster’s, a prayer is defined as “a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.”

Salman didn’t give a prayer. She gave a speech, and it was a decent one, as speeches go.

“We all seek to form ‘a more perfect union,’ creating change from an abiding passion to improve the lives of the humans of this city,” she said. But it wasn’t a prayer. That fine point, however, was apparently lost on a few dozen folks who showed up at the Capitol to protest on Thursday.

“By requiring these ‘prayers’ to recognize a ‘higher power,’ the House rules silence secular lawmakers and prejudicially deny them a platform to speak that is available to their religious colleagues,” Zenaido Quintana, chairman of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, told reporters.

Well, couldn’t secular lawmakers say their peace during time set aside for speeches and such? I believe it’s called a point of personal privilege.

But then, I suspect this isn’t really so much about secular lawmakers being able to speak in public as much as it is about religious lawmakers not being able to pray in public.

Personally, I prefer to pray privately. I suspect that God is far more interested in how we express our religious beliefs in our actions than in the words we offer in some public display. (Like, say, legislators praying for the poor then cutting off assistance and strangling their schools.)

But it seems to me there’s nothing wrong with public prayer. Not as long as those prayers don’t have to be offered to a state-sanctioned deity.

And besides that, there is one other compelling reason to seek the guidance and the grace of a higher power: the compassion and the mercy, and maybe even a few lessons in morality.

Our leaders? I figure they need all the help they can get.