The right to pray MY way
Published Saturday, May 1, 2004 by Heather Johnson
www.Bocanews.com
What started out as a routine Senate session, soon turned into a battle between freedom of speech and abiding by the rules.
Reverend Dr. Clayton Cloer, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Central Florida in Orlando, offered a prayer to open the Senate on Wednesday. But according to Senate guidelines, suggested by the National Conference for Community and Justice, Cloer did not follow them. Cloer believes he did follow those guidelines. “I did receive the guidelines. They say to ‘seek the highest common denominator without compromise of conscious.’ I would be compromising my conscious to not pray in Jesus’ name,” he stated.
Senator Ron Klein (D-Delray Beach) was one of the Jewish members of the Senate that heard Cloer’s prayer. Though he wasn’t offended, he believes that one should be able to pray to a group of people and still remain nondenominational.
“Prayer is something that can be done in a way that anyone could relate to. It’s just a courtesy that one can give a prayer to a variety of religious backgrounds without giving a specific reference to their own God, and be very successful to getting the day on the right foot by getting all 40 people in the room uplifted,” he remarked.
Referenced throughout Cloer’s prayer was the word “we.” For example, “We thank you, Lord, that there is a system in our state that affirms and appreciates religious expression and even provides the freedom for people to believe in one God; the freedom for people to believe in Jesus Christ; or to believe in that which is what they believe in their own conscience.”
Cloer ended the prayer by saying, “We pray these things in the wonderful, matchless name, the great name of our God and Savior. I pray them in the name of Jesus. Amen.” “I prayed on behalf of the group,” Cloer explained. “When I concluded, I went from ‘we’ to ‘I.’ I was not going to force people to pray to the God that I pray to.”
Though the prayer did offend some Jewish members of the Senate, as well as some local Jews, Cloer said he didn’t mean to offend anyone. In fact, it was Cloer who felt in some way offended.
“He [Senate President James King, Jr. (R-Jacksonville)] glared at me. I would hate to determine his level of indignation. I was stunned. I think this would upset anyone who heard my prayer that this type of prayer would call for an apology,” he said.
As for King, he was upset because this was the third day in a row that something like this happened – in which a person who came to give the opening prayer offended members of the Senate.
“The fact that he said anything was extremely rare. Senator Daniel Webster (R-Orlando) [who invited Cloer] said that he couldn’t remember that a presiding person had ever made such an apology.”
Klein did approach Cloer after the session. He wanted to make sure Cloer didn’t leave without understanding the reasoning behind the apology.
“We have a policy in the Senate that prayers are supposed to be inspirational and not divisive. I didn’t want him to walk out if the chamber and not understand why the Senate president said what he said,” Klein said.
Recently, Monsignor John McMahon, senior pastor of St. Joan of Arc in Boca, was Klein’s guest to say the opening prayer at the Senate. Klein says that McMahon remained inspirational while still following the guidelines for public prayer.
But Cloer doesn’t believe that one can pray to their Lord without praying in his name. Otherwise, it would just be a generic prayer.
“The Senate would have to virtually adopt their own prayer. They would have to leave their conscious at the door” Cloer said.
JIM KING, HOSPICE HALL OF FAMER AND SECULARIST OF THE YEAR. He's the opposite of Judge Roy Moore in many ways.