REMARKS TO CONTRA COSTA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

on behalf of American Jewish Congress

December 20, 1994

My name is Marty Kassman. I am a San Francisco attorney, speaking today on behalf of American Jewish Congress, which I serve as a regional board member. AJCongress is a 76-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and strengthening American democracy. We devote a large percentage of our time and resources to protecting and expanding Americans' freedom from government involvement in religious affairs.

I'm here this morning to say that AJCongress stands with those members of this community who object to this Board's practice of having official prayers delivered monthly by a person selected by the Council of Churches. Government-sponsored prayers and similar actions, such as the placement of religious symbols on government property, have the effect of making some people feel as though they are an inferior class of citizen, as though they are guests in someone else's community. That's not the way our democracy is supposed to work. In the United States, we don't have official or preferred religions at any level of government. For that reason, government officials who want to inject religion into their official duties often have to pretend that religion is not religion. They claim that the prayers or symbols in question lack any religious significance. This, of course, offends people whose religious views are represented by the prayers or symbols. No one can be happy for long when government meddles in religion.

We at AJCongress believe that government-sponsored prayers not only are bad policy but are contrary to the religious liberty provisions of the California Constitution and the United States Constitution. The violation is especially clear when only one religious viewpoint is regularly presented, which we understand to be the case here.

The Board may be aware that the California Attorney General issued an opinion⁽¹⁾ last year stating that a county board of supervisors may constitutionally open its sessions with an invocation. We at AJCongress question the Attorney General's conclusion about California law, but more importantly, the Attorney General explicitly based the opinion on six assumptions, including an assumption "that the invocation in question is not . . . officially limited to a particular religion." It is our understanding that the invocations here always, or nearly always, reflect Christian views and that the decision as to who will deliver an invocation has been delegated to a Christian ministerial association. Those facts take this Board's invocations outside the scope of the Attorney General's opinion. We believe that the Board's practice amounts to a religious "preference" in violation of Article 1, Section 4 of the California Constitution.

AJCongress urges the Board to show respect for the religious views of all of its constituents by discontinuing the practice of having official prayers at its meetings. If any of the supervisors are moved to seek divine guidance in advance of their meetings, they are certainly free to do so, but a religious exercise should not be part of the Board's official business.

I will be happy to respond to any questions from the Board or from the County Counsel about the legal issues or any other aspects of our position. I thank the supervisors for their attention.

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1. 76 Op. Att'y Gen. Cal. 281 (1993).