The mayor of a town on the outskirts of Houston has stood his ground after some demanded he end the practice of praying before city council meetings.
Dan Davis, the recently elected mayor of Manvel, explained to The Dallas Express that he would continue expressing his faith publicly and noted that prayer at government meetings is a long-standing practice protected by the Constitution.
“Previously, Manvel’s City Council would always have a prayer or an invocation given at the beginning of city council meetings,” Davis said. “But six years ago, a new mayor was elected, and that was changed to just doing an inspirational reading.”
“But when I got sworn in, one of the things I wanted to do was bring back the invocation,” Davis noted. “That was a very important thing to me. I think it was something that had been missing for a while.”
Davis did not remove the inspirational readings.
“But now we’ve added in invocations where a local pastor or local religious leader will come and say the invocation at the beginning of our meeting before we proceed,” he explained.
Davis, one of the youngest mayors in America at only 30 years old, began his term in prayer. Davis recently shared a picture from his inauguration showing several religious mentors praying over him and his family.
“Because of that, people have reached out and become a little bit more vocal in opposition towards that because they believe that it’s inappropriate for elected officials to be publicly expressing their beliefs in their capacity as elected officials.”
“A lot of times they bring up the ‘separation of church and state,’” Davis explained, “but the concept wasn’t that government and religion can’t intermix, but that there’s a degree of separation where government cannot force you to have certain religious beliefs.”
Referring back to moments in U.S. history, Davis outlined several instances where prayer played a significant role in government proceedings. He mentioned how the Continental Congress issued national prayer proclamations and how Benjamin Franklin called for prayer to assist in framing the Constitution.
“At the very core of who we are as a nation is the foundation of prayer and our religious beliefs,” he suggested. “So when people attempt to separate the two, you remove us from that heritage, from that history, and from something that’s been such an integral part of our nation’s history.”
Davis shared a message he received that read, “No one is saying you can’t pray for our nation. They’re just saying not to use taxpayer time and money to peddle your religion.”
Another person asserted, “No matter your faith or religious beliefs, group prayer does not belong in government activities.”
Anti-public prayer groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation have advocated for the end of religious expression at government functions.
“It is inappropriate for public officials—many of whom have tax-paid positions and all of whom take an oath to uphold secular constitutions—to schedule prayer at government functions, or open government meetings with prayer and religious ritual,” the group claims.
“Members of government boards are free to pray privately or to worship on their own time in their own way,” the group continued. “When government bodies lend their power and prestige to religion, this amounts to a governmental endorsement that exclude[s] one-fifth of the population — today one in five adult Americans is nonreligious.”
However, courts from Texas to the U.S. Supreme Court have found that prayer before government meetings, as long as no one is forced to participate, is permissible and protected under the Constitution.
“Time and time again, the courts have reaffirmed that at the very core of what we are as a nation is our First Amendment rights,” the mayor highlighted. “One of those is the right to free speech, and another one is the right of religious liberty.”
“I think that now, in 2023, more than ever before, we need to look to the Gospels, we need to look to the Bible, to help guide our path,” he added.
“When you stand up for what you believe in, people are going to come against it, and people will send mean and hateful comments and messages, which I’ve received,” Davis noted. “But I don’t run the race just to run it. I run to win.”
“And my winning of the race is, at the end of the day, being able to stand before my Creator and have him look at me and say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant,’” Davis concluded.