Free Republic

New leadership in the state House of Representatives has apparently opened the door for a local pastor to give the opening prayer at an upcoming legislative session. The Rev. Gerald Stoltzfoos, who in 2009 turned down an invitation to give the opening prayer because he was asked to delete a reference to Jesus, has been reinvited by Rep. Will Tallman, R-Reading Township, to give an invocation on the House floor. "They want to prove they are a different organization than they were," said Stoltzfoos, lead pastor at Freedom Valley Worship Center in Straban Township. "They're asking me to do it."

A Pennsylvania pastor rejected by the state's House of Representatives will pray in the Senate instead. The pastor is Gerry Stoltzfoos of Freedom Valley Worship Center in Gettysburg. He was asked to pray before the House by his own representative and sent officials a written prayer on their request. "I wrote the prayer and sent it to them and they sent back a very short rejection notice," he recalls. "So I wrote back, 'I'm curious as to why.' And they said it had an offensive word. Can you tell me what the word was?' And they came back and said...