Acting on a proposal by Columbia City Councilwoman and possible mayoral candidate Tameika Isaac Devine, City Council unanimously and with no discussion has approved a potentially divisive policy to begin its meetings with a prayer.

All of the council’s seven members except Kirkman Finlay voted to adopt the policy Aug. 19. Finlay was absent.
 

At-large City Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine says she is considering running for mayor of Columbia. Photo by Jonathan Sharpe

The six members voted without saying one word about the issue, despite the deeply personal tenets of religion, a tendency for church-state issues to be polarizing and the fact that a smorgasbord of faiths, as well as agnostics and atheists, call the Capital City home.

“I’m always suspicious when public officials want to include a prayer in what they’re doing, because it strikes me as pandering to religious voters,” says the Rev. Neal Jones, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbia and president of the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Jones says City Council’s prayer practice is bad for religion, because it gets government involved in it, and bad for public policy, because it invariably leads to a government entity favoring the dominant faith, in this case Christianity.

The policy could open the city to a lawsuit challenging whether it is constitutional, a common occurrence in the modern struggle to define what if any role is proper for religion in government affairs.

To pass constitutional muster, such prayers must be universal, says Victoria Middleton, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s South Carolina office.

Devine, one of three at-large representatives on the council, was first elected to her seat in 2002, defeating longtime incumbent Frannie Heizer. In so doing, Devine won accolades as a youthful, fresh-faced and first testament to the fact that Columbia has progressed to a point that voters would favor an African-American in a citywide election.

Now nearing the end of her second term, Devine faces a crossroads in city elections slated for April: Will she seek re-election as a councilwoman, or, as she has publicly pondered, try to ascend to the mayor’s office?

“I am considering it,” she says of the latter, “and right now what I think I’m weighing is whether or not the timing is right for me to do that.” Devine says her contemplation centers on how she would balance the time she devotes to her family and her business and the demands that serving as mayor would place on her schedule. The councilwoman and her husband, Jamie, have a 4-year-old daughter and she is a partner in the Jabber & Isaac law firm.

Devine says she was surprised that City Council had not been starting its meetings with an invocation. “And I totally respect the whole separation of church and state,” she says.
But Devine says council members have an important job to do — the will of the people.

“And I think starting with an invocation gives you that importance and sets that tone,” she says. “But it’s definitely our desire to give voice to a diverse group.”

Asked to comment on voting for the policy, Mayor Bob Coble and Councilmen Sam Davis and Daniel Rickenmann said they are not worried about implicitly endorsing a particular religion.

Messages left for Council members Belinda Gergel and E.W. Cromartie were not returned.


Let us know what you think: Email news@free-times.com.