Source: The Record Searchlight
http://www.redding.com/news/2010/may/15/mayor-pushes-prayer-diversity/
Redding Mayor Patrick Jones wants to diversify City Council invocations.
Police chaplains currently deliver these prayers, which essentially are entreaties to some higher power for guidance at the beginning of a council meeting.
The council on Tuesday will consider Jones’ proposal to open the invocations to any faith, individual or group wanting to do one.
Federal and state courts have allowed invocations at government meetings. But under state law these prayers are not supposed to promote one religious faith over another.
In Redding invocations traditionally have a strongly Christian flavor to appeal to the city’s overwhelming religious majority.