Rudman's city: Answer to council prayer may be compromise

By BRIAN RUDMAN

The controversial North Shore City prayer asks God to "give us your spirit so that we may make decisions with wisdom and maturity", but there are no signs of this request getting through. Or if she got the message, of it being answered.

Mayor George Wood remains just as stubbornly in support of the prayer as he ever was, while from the suburbs his supporters have been penning letters of abuse with a level of invective I've not seen since the days of the Vietnam War and Springbok tour protests.

You will recall how new North Shore councillor Andrew Williams was both surprised and offended to discover at his first council meeting that proceedings began with a Christian prayer, intoned by the mayor, suggesting it was God, rather than the voters, who had called councillors to public service.

Threatening to complain to the Human Rights Commission, Mr Williams argued it was illegal to impose religious views on others. His comments split the community - and council.

Mr Wood's only concession is to pretend the prayer is not part of the meeting by removing it from being the first item on the agenda into some Never-Never Land immediately before the official opening.

However, he is insisting that the prayer remain printed as part of the council agenda.

The difference seems minuscule. In the past, councillors who did not want to be part of the prayer waited for the meeting to be opened, then stood a pace or three back from their chairs while Mr Wood prayed, then they returned to their seats. Either that, or they hovered outside the council chamber until the prayer was said, then slunk into their seats.

The so-called compromise has all dissenters lurking outside until after the prayer, then bursting in to take their seats. Either way, it's an unedifying and unnecessary spectacle. Unedifying, also, have been the abusive letters.

Mr Williams has sent me a few he received. Like the one threatening to persuade hundreds of Christians not to vote for him next time or the one from "Concerned Ratepayer" suggesting he was showing complete lack of respect for others' beliefs.

There was even one on company letterhead from L.J. Hooker director Frank McGuckian. The real estate man accuses him of "displaying a level of arrogance that implies a general lack of wisdom". Claiming councillors should be upholding Christian moral values, he says "Should you not uphold Christian beliefs and values then you are acting undemocratically in endeavouring to impose your beliefs (or lack of) on others."

Talk about losing the plot. All Mr Williams was asking was that the Christian prayer no longer be an integral part of a secular council meeting representing a multi-cultural community.

But as Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan observed to me, New Zealanders are bad at talking through an issue without immediately denigrating and rejecting the viewpoints of others.

Mr Williams is still considering a complaint to the Human Rights Commission. However, a similar complaint from Wayne Church, president of the New Zealand Secular Society, suggests he won't get much joy.

Mr Church was upset earlier this year by a karakia being delivered at a public meeting called under the auspices of the Hawkes Bay Regional Council to consider wastewater consents. The commission refused to handle the case on the grounds that for there to be a legitimate complaint of discrimination, you need to show damage has been inflicted on you. It's not good enough to say you don't like something.

Unbowed, Mr Church went off to the Complaints Review Tribunal. In March this year his complaint was again rejected, the tribunal observing "his level of comfort for the duration of the karakia is not relevant to establishing a breach" of the act.

It pointed out "the karakia was a prayer and did not contain expressions of hostility or contempt for any racial or ethnic grouping".

Mr Church appealed to the High Court, but made his run a little late. Last Thursday his application was rejected because he hadn't got his papers in on time.

All of which is hardly good news for Mr Williams, who is still unhappy with the so-called mayoral compromise which "obviously doesn't respect other people's beliefs or logical argument".

For Rosslyn Noonan it is one of those issues which she would expect "mature New Zealanders should be able to sort out".

Emphasising she wasn't commenting on any individual case, she says "we have to recognise public authorities certainly shouldn't be using religion in a way that excludes those not of the religion that is being used.

"But I think a few moments of meditation before the opening of a meeting is not something that anyone could object to." She adds that "it might be desirable to think about the words that are used during the period of meditation being changed from time to time and being inclusive of different religious perspectives or even humanistic perspectives".

That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me. How it will go down among the mature leaders of the North Shore, however, is another question.