USA Today says Juan Mendez (D-Tempe) put in a request
to have Secular Coalition of Arizona director Serah
Blain speak before the house during yesterday's "prayer time," but
his request was somehow misplaced, so he decided to address the House in her
stead.
"Most
prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to
ask you not to bow your heads," Mendez told
his fellow legislators at the start of yesterday's invocation. "I would
like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men
and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience
of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the
lives of the people of our state."
This room in which there are many
challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of
frustration. But this is also a room where, as my Secular Humanist tradition
stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we
have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for
compassion, for fear, for joy, for love.
Carl Sagan
once wrote, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only
through love.” There is, in the political process, much to bear. In this room,
let us cherish and celebrate our shared humanness, our shared capacity for
reason and compassion, our shared love for the people of our state, for our
Constitution and for our democracy - and let us root our policymaking process
in these values that are relevant to all Arizonans regardless of religious
belief or nonbelief. In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let
us work together for a better Arizona.
Mendez went on to point out
several Secular Coalition for Arizona members watching from the House gallery,
and said he hoped Arizona's non-believers would now be able to "feel as
welcome and valued here as believers."
The Phoenix New
Times reports that one of the Coalition members in
attendance "said she was 'witnessing history.'"
In related
news, the Supreme Court this week announced its plans to review the
constitutionality of holding
prayer sessions at legislative meetings.
