KING OF ALL MEDIA

My buddy Mark is part of an effort to bring a certain long-established political practice to an end: sectarian prayers at the meetings of the Fresno City Council. Essentially, they took the time to meticulously document how at virtually every meeting of the Council last year some local religious leader referenced Jesus Christ or Christianity.

Here's the details of those invocations in spreadsheet form. I count 15 specific references to Jesus Christ. On the face of it, it would seem that this is sectarian and thus unconstitutional. It will be very interesting to see what the City Attorney publicly says about this, as Council President Larry Westerlund (who has aspirations of running for Congress) is already grandstanding on the supposed rights of the Christian majority and how they are the victims of intolerance.

Here's a Bee article describing the stand Mark is taking with other members of CVASS and the national Freedom from Religion Foundation. He's brave. Surprisingly, as mentioned on the CVASS site, even the one Muslim cleric who appeared in the last year's worth of videos mentioned Jesus. Well, hrrmm, he was a prophet.