Atheist Arizona lawmaker quotes Carl Sagan for House opening prayer

[longship]

4. He forgot, "In Sagan's name, we pray."

This type of gesture is the kind of thing which needs to happen more often.

When I was very active in Democratic Party politics in Wichita, KS, at the same time Republican Party functions were begun with a Christian prayer, our meetings began with "The Word". One of the board members or committee persons would volunteer to provide a brief quotation for each meeting which would be presented right after the call to order.

We heard a lot of Jefferson and Paine but often people would stray into some fairly obscure texts for their turn. It was really nice and helped us focus our efforts because there would inevitably be a short discussion following the "word" before the chair would call an end to it and move us onto the agenda. I notice that the chair would always let things go for five or ten minutes before he or she moved on.

It was a very nice way to start things off. Of course, the quotation usually had some resonance to current political affairs, which was its intent.