In my working life, I attend a lot of meetings. Some of these are optional, but most are an integral part of my job. I'd consider it more than a little odd, not to mention inappropriate, if the person chairing one of those meetings announced that they'd invited the local vicar / rabbi / imam along to lead us all in prayer. I suspect that the same would apply to most of you. Unless you happen to work in a place of worship, prayer is not a required part of most peoples' working environments, nor should it be.
If you believe all the hype and hysteria that has spewed forth since last week's high court ruling on council prayers in Bideford, it was all about "atheist councillor Clive Bone" seeking to impose his atheism on everybody else. In fact, of course, it's entirely the opposite.
Throughout the case, nobody has suggested that councillors shouldn't be able to pray before going to a meeting, or even pray silently during it. The case merely suggested that worship should not be part of a council's formal business, and should not be required of councillors in order to do their democratic duty. In other words, nobody is saying that councillors shouldn't be religious, only that the council shouldn't be. That seems like a reasonable request to me.
"Hang on though," supporters of council prayer will say, "prayer is part of our nation's heritage." Bideford Council has apparently been praying during meetings for 200 years. Back when they started, that was fair enough - it would have been unthinkable that anyone who wasn't a Christian would ever sit on the council. It would also have been unthinkable, by the way, that anyone who wasn't white and male would sit on the council. Those days are thankfully gone, and our public institutions need to adapt their behaviour accordingly.
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