Last week I had the story of the atheists who had asked and were been allowed to hold the invocation at the Lenoir City council meeting. I also told you that these anti God folks don't really care about wanting to participate in meeting invocations, it's just their way to try to eliminate Christian over tones from government.

Well, if you ever wanted to see instant conformation of that, just read the Letter To The Editor Mr. atheists sent to The Knoxville News Sentinel last week.

Letter: Prayers at meeting assault on respect

knoxnews.com, Letter To The Editor
 

Last year the U.S. Supreme Court decided that invocations can be given at government meetings, but no one could be excluded from giving invocations. Recently the Rationalists of East Tennessee decided to test the willingness of local government organizations to acknowledge their duty to be open to all citizens, not just Christians.

One of our officiants, as a representative of our members in Lenoir City, requested and was accepted to provide the invocation at the Lenoir City Commission. She was told by the mayor that she was welcomed and they were glad to have her do so.

What followed was an assault on the principle of equal respect before a government body.

First the mayor defined the time limit for the invocation, took a copy of the text of the invocation "for the records," and disappeared into a back room.

The brief invocation was given thanking the public officials for their service and commitment. There were no references to gods or a particular religion in the invocation, just a request to realize that the commission represents and should respect a diverse community.

Immediately following the secular invocation was a non-agenda item that was primarily a lengthy Christian prayer under the guise of asking for blood donations. After the Pledge of Allegiance there was yet another non-agenda Christian prayer twisting the text of the secular invocation (which had been taken to a back room earlier) and further alienating non-Christians by stating that this is a "Christian nation."

That night, the officials of Lenoir City demonstrated that non-Christians could not have even one minute of respect by that governing body. The message was very clear: "If you are not a Christian you are not an equal citizen. The Lenoir City government will not allow you even one meeting that is solely about governing for all."

Carl Ledendecker, Louisville

The Lentlickers or however they pronounce their name, are just typical anti Christian, left wing liberals. They're not interested in inclusion and freedom of speech. They're interested in exclusion of Christians and freedom of speech as long as it's speech they approve of. According to the LTTE above, they feel they should have been the only ones who were allowed to speak before the council.

Like I said before, you will never satisfy these kind of people till they completely eliminate what they perceive as Christian influence in government.

Oh and by the way, not that it would be any surprise, but according to their web site, the Lentlickers are card carrying members of the democrat party. They are district delegates with the Blount County Democrat party.