Last night as I sat eating dinner I decided to check out the City Council meeting here in Akron. Of course I had to dredge through all the preliminary stuff, but I was stopped dead in my tracks at what I seen. A member of City Council asked all to bow their heads for a moment of prayer..... I had to check my feed, was I watching a Saudi Arabian City Council Meeting? Surely not here in America, the land of the free, were we starting a government meeting with hollow words to a false idol? Of course we were, hell, Religion is the only thing more phony than politics.
To my shock Akron City Council was recently called out on these actions back in May (https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/41069-ffrf-advises-ohio-city-council-to-leave-prayer-out-of-meetings) A letter was written to Council President Margo Sommerville and included: “Prayer at government meetings is unnecessary, inappropriate and divisive,” FFRF Legal Fellow Karen Heineman writes to Akron City Council President Margo Sommerville. “The best solution to respect the diversity of Akron’s citizenry and to provide a welcoming environment is to discontinue invocations.” (https://ffrf.org/uploads/legal/AkronCityCouncilOHMay2022.pdf)
Seems pretty simple right? With the recent murder of Jayland Walker by the Akron Police, Police intimidating and assaulting protesters and Mayor Horrigan refusing to have meetings with Community Activist you would think this City Council would be putting forth actions instead of prayers. Religion has never been used by governments for anything other than justifying wars and denying human rights. To this day the religious nuts of the world continue to influence laws that effect all us normal people. Religion was used as an excuse for slavery, outlawing abortions, outlawing gay marriage and many other laws us sane people had to go back and fix. We need the deities out of our Democracy or we are doomed to continue living in a country that discriminates and manipulates. I have decided to run for City Council in 2023 so one less spot will be ran by some religious nutcase that wants to send thoughts and prayers instead of answers and solutions. Let's kick Church out of City Hall.