40 Days of Prayer

City officials not budging from 40 Days support

By Tia Lyons

tlyons@

eldoradonews.com

A defiant stance taken earlier this month by the El Dorado City Council against a request regarding a communitywide prayer campaign has met a strong response from the complainant.

Mayor Frank Hash said he does not intend to answer an email and letter that were sent last week by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is again asking the city to remove references about 40 Days of Prayer in El Dorado from its Facebook pages.

The FFRF is a Wisconsin-based nonprofit organization educating the public about nontheism — a noncommittal attitude toward God, religion and atheism — and to promote and defend the separation of religion and government, according to the FFRM website.

During a council meeting on Oct. 8, aldermen, voted unanimously to repost daily prayer topics for the 40 Days campaign to the City Hall and El Dorado Police Department’s Facebook pages.

All eight council members stood during roll call to emphasize their point.

The project calls for unity to help bring peace to the city and to curb violence. The campaign began on Sept. 27 and ends on Nov. 5.

Daily prayer topics, buoyed by Biblical scripture, are posted to the city’s Facebook pages, but they were temporarily removed earlier this month after Hash received a letter from the FFRM requesting that the city stop promoting 40 Days on its Internet sites.

Hash previously said that a local citizen had complained to the FFRM about the matter.

Following the council’s vote to repost the topics, FFRM sent another missive dated Oct. 14.

Rebecca S. Market, identified in the letter as a staff attorney for the FFRM, wrote that the organization had received word about the mayor’s initial decision to delete 40 Days’ references from the city’s social media sites.

However, she said the group later learned from the local complainant about the council’s decision on Oct. 8. “It is disappointing and puzzling to see a city acknowledge that their actions are illegal, then vote unanimously to continue breaking the law,” Market wrote.

She urged the city council to reconsider its “dubious decision.”

The city’s response?

“I don’t intend to respond unless we are formally served,” Hash said.

Instead, city officials are working with the Arkansas Municipal League and have reached out to Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit organization that “advocates for your rights to freely live out your faith.”

Hash and City Attorney Henry Kinslow spoke with an ADF lawyer about the matter on Monday. Kinslow said he is continuing to work with the ADF and hopes to present options to the city council on Thursday.

ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Hash said he feels that it is best to allow the lawyers to sort through the matter.

“I’m going to let it lay like it is until I do some more research. It’s a delicate deal, but essentially, we’re not backing off,” he said. “I don’t want the city to get involved in an expensive, legal-type situation. I believe we can come up with a good policy, a good way to do this.”

Hash said he is also in contact with the AML and hopes the league will make a push for a statewide policy on such issues.

In her letter, Market contended, “El Dorado citizens deserve a local government that respects the U.S. Constitution and does not waste City funds defending an obviously illegal practice in court. We again request assurances that the City Council will not show a preference for religion over nonreligion, or for Christianity over minority faiths.”

Alderman Vance Williamson, who made the motion on Oct. 8 to repost the 40 Days’ topics to the municipal Facebook pages, argued that the city is not promoting one religion over another.

“We told the mayor and the Henry Kinslow what we wanted to do that night,” he said. “This is very important to me, or I wouldn’t push it there. I’m willing to keep on keeping on with it,” Williamson said.

Williamson said he has seen postings pertaining to other religious beliefs on the city’s Facebook pages.

Hash made similar statements regarding postings on the city’s websites, “There are no restrictions. If an atheist wants to post something on there, they can. There’s no limitations, as long as it’s in good taste.”

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