Here come prayers at city councils of religions you don’t like.
“Here come prayers at city councils of religions you don’t like.”
Why should that make a difference? A prayer at a public meeting is nothing but a desire of one person (the prayer-giver) to invoke the blessings of their recognized higher power on whatever the meeting is intended to accomplish. It may be a request for wisdom or peaceful debate or something else but the point is the public organization is not the instigator of the prayer but the intended beneficiary.
If I, as a Christian, have a Muslim friend who says to me, “It looks like you are having a tough day; may I pray for you?”, should I be offended? My response would be to be touched by my friend’s concern and appreciative that he is trying to help me in the best way he knows how. I don’t have to share a belief in the same diety to accept and make my own similar wishes to others.
So in a public meeting, I don’t care whether the prayer is addressed to Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddha, Ra, Satan or anyone or anything else. I take the good wishes and hopes of the prayer-giver as something good for all of us to consider and pass along. It doesn’t mean you agree with everything that has been said, only that you appreciate the sentiment and intent.