VIDEO, Letter to ECSB's Boone After He Lead's Meeting's Prayer

VIDEO: http://youtu.be/s_CqpkmepGQ
- On the plus side, Mrs Hightower gave a nice warning.  That's good, but doesn't make this legal or right.  The prayer itself is illegal, against their own policy and Jesus', and has no place at a public meeting, especially for a (non-legislative) school board.

My Email:

Mr Boone, 

Sorry I could not be there in person. I had a long-scheduled previous engagement. I plan to be back next month.
You should know... your prayer Tuesday directly contradicts the student handbook, Supreme Court, and Jesus Christ:

Handbook: “No person and no employee or agent of the district shall coerce, advocate, or encourage in any way whatsoever prayer or any other religious activity by students." The room was FULL of students.

Galloway Decision: By passing over good faith offers from minorities and giving the invocation yourself (thus endorsing Christianity), you defy SCOTUS's narrow support of invocations: "a minister or layperson of ANY persuasion, including an atheist, could give the invocation" AND "So long as the town maintains a policy of nondiscrimination..." 

Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

I also find it hypocritical and ironic that you think your prayers are relevant to school activities and protected as free expression, but you want to suppress mine and others' as illegal and irrelevant. That's rich.

I hope you will re-consider praying before the meeting and in private, so the board will not face litigation or further monthly reminders (from me and others) of your illegal co-mingling of church and state. I won't quit speaking up until you do.

with Regret, 

David Suhor
850 512-2220

PS. I still await a written invocation policy. It's too bad your attorney cannot craft one that supports what you want to do AND comports with the law.