School board in Shasta County criticized for prayers at public meetings

An organization that advocates for the separation of church and state is calling on a school board in Shasta County to stop opening its public meetings with a Christian prayer, KRCR TV reported.

Trustees of the Gateway Unified School District in Redding voted 3-2 last month to open their meetings with a prayer. The practice was immediately met with opposition from parents, KRCR reported.

Trustee Lindsi Haynes led a prayer at a recent board meeting and could be heard saying the meeting was “dedicated to God,” according to KRCR. Now, The Freedom from Religion Foundation is calling on trustees to halt the prayers.

“It is coercive, insensitive, and intimidating to force nonreligious citizens to choose between making a public showing of their nonbelief by refusing to participate in the prayer or else display deference toward a religious sentiment in which they do not believe, but which their school board members clearly do,” the foundation wrote in a letter to the trustees.

The foundation cited several court cases striking down prayer at school-sponsored affairs in California, including one recently brought against the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County, which was eventually ordered to stop reciting prayers at its own school board meetings and was forced to pay more than $200,000 in legal fees.