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ANNE LINDBERGA second Pinellas Park resident has asked the City Council to abstain from prayer and displaying the Bible.
PINELLAS PARK - A second resident has come forward and asked the City Council to stop praying and displaying the Bible on the dais next to the mayor's nameplate.
"The city of Pinellas Park needs to adhere to the wise policy of keeping church and government separate," Mark Winterbottom said during Thursday's council meeting.
His remarks were greeted with silence from the council. But Peter White, another Pinellas Park resident, urged the council to ignore Winterbottom's request.
"I hope that you keep the Bible here. It's our heritage," White said. He quoted a passage saying that righteousness exalts a nation.
"I just hope that you keep it here. I just want to say Jesus Christ is alive and well in this world," White said.
The council's practice of having so-called generic prayers to open meetings and resting a Bible on the dais next to the mayor's nameplate has been questioned for the past couple of months.
But council members have held firm, telling Pinellas Park resident Randy Heine they will neither stop praying nor remove the Bible. They vowed to spend tax money to defend their position should Heine or someone else sue over the matter.
Mayor Bill Mischler dismissed Heine's request, saying the majority rules and Heine was the only one who objected.
That changed Thursday when Winterbottom rose to speak. Winterbottom said he was raised as a Roman Catholic but is now a humanist. He works in the St. Petersburg Times circulation department.
"There's a lot of things I like about Pinellas Park," Winterbottom said. "I'm very pleased to be here. But there's one thing that really troubles me about the city and that's the city's practice of supporting religion.
"When the City Council members display a Bible at the meeting they're definitely promoting a specific religion at the expense of others."
He reminded the council members that they are not private citizens but are government officials once a meeting is called to order. As such, they represent everybody and should not promote religion.
"During the invocations held by the City Council, when the generic prayers are conducted that mention the term God, almighty father, his name, heavenly father, holy spirit, etc., the council is excluding Muslims, Hindus and probably Orthodox Jews because they all have their own specific name for their deities," he said. "You certainly are, I think, offending 10-13 percent of the population who are nonreligious."
By offering generic prayers, Winterbottom said, Christians also are depriving themselves of the true expression of faith that they would like to make.
If the council members want to talk about God or a specific religion, they can do it on their own time as private citizens, Winterbottom said.