When Deborah Maynard, a Wiccan priestess from Cedar Rapids, gave the morning prayer at the start of Thursday’s Iowa House of Representatives session, many lawmakers were not in attendance.
Jasper County Reps. Dan Kelley (D-Newton) and Greg Heartsill (R-Columbia) were among the legislators who chose to skip the prayer. Democratic Rep. Liz Bennett (D-Cedar Rapids) invited Maynard.
“I’m a Christian, and I won’t be in attendance,” Kelley said on Wednesday. “The morning prayer is a longstanding tradition of the legislature, and a chance for both parties to start the day on the same page. I feel that this choice is a distraction from what the prayer is intended to be.”
Heartsill said Thursday night that he wasn’t in the chamber during the prayer. He said he believes the Preamble to the Iowa Constitution, which references gratitude to a “Him,” is one of the ways a Christian tradition has been established for the legislature.
“While Rep. Bennett has the prerogative to invite whomever she pleases to pray before session, and Ms. Maynard has the constitutional right to pray as she wishes, I prefer that we open the House with prayer to the supreme being referenced in the preamble to the Iowa Constitution,” Heartsill said. “There is no doubt in my mind that ‘being’ is the God of the Bible.”
Kelley and Heartsill were not alone in their protest of non-attendance. At least half the 100 lawmakers were not present in the House chamber.
“I respect the rights of others to pursue their personal choice of religious activities,” Kelley said. “But in exercising my personal choice, I choose not to be in the chamber.”
Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com