Wheaton to adopt guidelines for religious invocations

Wheaton is poised to adopt written guidelines for its long-standing tradition of offering religious invocations before city council meetings.

But the Freedom From Religion Foundation warns the proposed guidelines don't go far enough to prevent the pre-meeting prayers from violating the First Amendment. The national group is urging the council to discontinue the practice.

"Our organization would prefer that they don't continue the practice of prayer," said Rebecca Markert, the group's attorney. "We don't think that it's a necessary component of a government meeting."

The foundation contacted Wheaton last October after its review of invocations given before council meetings between March and September found the prayers "rarely, if ever," met federal requirements. According to Markert, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled prayers during government meetings must be nondenominational and nonsectarian.

A majority of the invocations in Wheaton contained specific references to Jesus Christ, according to the group.

Wheaton's attorney, Jim Knippen, said the number of Christian invocations is a direct result of the number of Christian churches in Wheaton.

Knippen said having an invocation doesn't violate the First Amendment as long as it doesn't exclude any faiths. As part of the guidelines council members are reviewing, all religious leaders in the community formally would be invited to provide an invocation. Even religious leaders from outside the city could participate.

"This is a template that other municipalities, other institutions, have used and it has stood up in court," Mayor Michael Gresk said.

The problem with the proposed guidelines, according Markert, is they don't require invocations be nonsectarian.

"Without that nonsectarian requirement, it doesn't seem like anything is going to be changing," she said. "They are maintaining the status quo."

According to Wheaton's proposed guidelines, religious leaders would be encouraged not to use their prayer "as an effort to convert others to a particular faith of the invocation speaker, nor to disparage any faith or belief different from that of the invocation speaker."

Other than those suggestions, Gresk said the council has no desire to dictate what a speaker can and cannot say.

"You can't rein in on someone whose has had 15, 20 years of training and experience and tell them not to pray that way," Gresk said.

The Wheaton City Council isn't the only governmental body in DuPage County that regularly has prayers to open its meetings. The county board and forest preserve commission both have similar invocations.