Lodi meeting to feature Hindu mantra

[rug]

By Keith Reid
Record Staff Writer
June 05, 2012 12:00 AM

LODI - A Hindu statesman from Reno will be in Lodi on Wednesday night to deliver an invocation before the City Council meeting, marking the first representation of Hinduism since the council made changes to its prayer policy after a 2009 controversy brought national attention.

Universal Society of Hinduism President Rajan Zed said he contacted the city of Lodi about delivering a mantra before the upcoming council meeting because he has friends and family in Stockton's Hindu community.

The Lodi City Council made a policy decision in late 2009 to invite leaders from all religions to deliver a prayer or mantra before its twice-monthly meetings. A national atheist group had protested Lodi for the regularity in which it asked Christian ministers to deliver an invocation, and because they often prayed in the name of Jesus.

The City Council decided not to discourage any specific prayer, but instead opted to become more inviting to leaders of every religion and to allow them to pray.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120605/A_NEWS/206050313/-1/A_LIFE

[cbayer]

1. Cool. Good for them.

[msongs]

2. they will not honor the seperation of church and state. satan worshippers leading them in prayer

as well?

[rug]

3. If Satan worshippers wish to pray with the Lodi City Council, that's what this stated policy allows.

Although I generally hold Satan worshippers in higher regard than that.

[daaron]

4. A colossal waste of time.

City Council meetings aren't the place for any religious observance. Get down to business. We have real world problems, and prayer solves nothing. (Indeed, the only halfway decent study - STEP - of prayer found that those who knew they are being prayed for take longer to heal than those who either receive no prayer, or don't know they're being prayed for.)

Yes I know I ended a couple clauses with prepositions. It was just too ponderous with all those "for which"'s.

[Adsos Letter]

5. Wrong.

Skip any prayers, mantras, invocations to anything, and get down to to the business of civil governance. If those in attendance feel the need to pray, etc., they should do so before they go.

As I see it, the issue is not one of ecumenism in governance, but a separation between governance and religious belief.