County votes to cut prayer requirement

After a brief interruption from a fire alarm, the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 to eliminate a resolution passed in 2018 that required commission meetings to open with prayer.

The designated prayer time at the start of the meetings allowed for local faith leaders to lead a prayer on a first-come-first serve basis and were limited to only three minutes.

County Commissioner Shannon Reynolds, who introduced the resolution to end the practice, said that there have been 127 instances of meetings beginning with prayer and 78% of those prayers were done by different denominations of Christianity.

“When the overwhelming majority of those offering meetings at the BOCC meetings represent only a small subset of the more than 800 religions worldwide, it creates the appearance that this board is primarily recognizing and supporting a limited number of religious traditions,” Reynolds said during the meeting.

During the public comment before the vote, more than 20 people spoke in support and in opposition to the resolution. Public comment on this topic lasted for nearly an hour.

Those in support of ending the opening prayer wore blue shirts that read “Let’s be Reasonable” and held up signs calling for the separation of church and state.

During public comment, former county commissioner Isabella Solis spoke in favor of keeping prayer in the meeting and said that while there are hundreds of religions worldwide, there are only two main ones in the county and those are evangelicalism and Catholicism.

“As elected representatives of Doña Ana County, you all have a profound responsibility to reflect the values and beliefs of your constituents,” Solis said.

Solis continued by citing the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives opens every session with prayer. She also tried to request a copy of the resolution after public comment ended and was met with boo’s and yells from the audience.

Community member Larry Sedillo echoed this sentiment and said “when you remove prayer, you are removing God from the county.”

Juan Garcia challenged the idea that the time for prayer was not inclusive enough.

“Mr. chairman, have you invited the Muslims? Have you invited Hindus? I don’t know and if you haven’t then shame on you for not doing that,” Garcia said. “Your vision of inclusivity means shutting people out by removing the prayer.”

He and other pro-prayer speakers also criticized the decision to not issue a proclamation recognizing National Day of Prayer earlier this year.

Community member Lynn Moorer spoke against prayer during the meeting and said that “sermonizing under the guise of prayer is offensive.”

“Separation of church and state is one of the core tenets of our country’s constitution,” Moorer said.

County commissioner Susana Chapparo was the lone vote in favor of keeping prayer in the meetings.