Atheist Arizona lawmaker quotes Carl Sagan for House opening prayer
By David Edwards
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 10:04 EDT
An atheist state lawmaker in Arizona invoked astronomer Carl Sagan on Tuesday when he was tasked with giving the opening prayer for the state House of Representatives.
Democratic state Representative Juan Mendez began by asking members not to bow their heads, explaining that he had a “secular humanist tradition,” according to an account published by the Phoenix NewTimes.
“Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads,” the lawmaker said. “I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state.”
“This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration,” he continued. “But this is also a room where, as my secular humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love.”
Mendez added a quote from Sagan’s book, Contact: “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”
At a press conference outside the Legislature, members of the Secular Coalition for Arizona said that it has been an honor to be present for what they believed was the first atheist invocation on the state House floor.
Mendez, who also spoke at the event, noted that one in five Americans and 1.3 million Arizonans chose not to affiliate with a religion.
“We are learning the importance of coming out and visibility and how important it is in this effort to get non-believers to feel welcomed and valued,” he explained. “We do ourselves a disservice if we exclude or ignore the concerns of so many people in Arizona. And I simply want to let others know that we have more in common than we have in differences.”
“And that the love of our humanity and the sense of caring for, nourishing and developing and enhancing what it is to be human can be practiced by everyone.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/atheist-arizona-lawmaker-quotes-carl-sagan-for-house-opening-prayer/
Full article posted with permission
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This type of gesture is the kind of thing which needs to happen more often.
When I was very active in Democratic Party politics in Wichita, KS, at the same time Republican Party functions were begun with a Christian prayer, our meetings began with "The Word". One of the board members or committee persons would volunteer to provide a brief quotation for each meeting which would be presented right after the call to order.
We heard a lot of Jefferson and Paine but often people would stray into some fairly obscure texts for their turn. It was really nice and helped us focus our efforts because there would inevitably be a short discussion following the "word" before the chair would call an end to it and move us onto the agenda. I notice that the chair would always let things go for five or ten minutes before he or she moved on.
It was a very nice way to start things off. Of course, the quotation usually had some resonance to current political affairs, which was its intent.
sometimes something really cool happens 
I wish it would spread like wildfire across the country
Seriously and sadly--though I'm glad he got this one moment to point out that the "opening words" of such sessions need not imply that faith in a divinity is required for these representatives to do their job--and I appreciate even more that he defined that job as "improving the lives of the people in our state."
I wonder how many of them really and truly define their job as doing that...
The irony!
