I am of two minds of this. At one level, I would prefer a separation of church and state. One the other, there are many battles to be fought on social justice and this is not at the top.
I have stronger feelings about a Protestant prayer that ends, in Jesus name. That is something I think goes beyond a general opening of a meeting and more specific to one sub-set of one religion.
I just stand or sit and roll my eyes for the god windup ones, although there are a number of agnostic and atheist prayers I will take part in as they really are intended to be somewhat reflective and useful to help give you time to gather your thoughts for the work you need to do at the meeting.
Church and state mixing is going to lead to criminalizing abortion, taking away birth control and destroying LGBTQ rights. More important than you think affecting all women and LGBTQ community.
I used to feel the same way, but the more I learned about religion, the more I detest these public displays in government.
I used to belong to the Rotary Club of Bellflower. Thought it might be a good thing to help the community. We went through three presidents in two years. The last one made a major point of the pray at the beginning of the meeting. One day at the start of the meeting, he said, " with out god we would have this great country." I took exception to that, with out this country he wouldn't be able to worship the way he does. Church and state must always be separated or we will revert to the dark ages and who knows maybe another inquisition.
well, isnt that the cause of the holy wars that have been going on for hundreds of years?