Not complaining, but here's another one: Whatever happened to the New Albany Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast?

In candor, I hadn't noticed the absence. The last reference anywhere that I can find about the New Albany Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast is in 2017 (above).

It's as though this egregious violation of church-state separation just up and disappeared. Did Jeff Gahan move it to his living room?

Who has the story?

This post will be updated when the details are uncovered. Meanwhile, here's one of my favorite posts from 2017 (October 29).

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FFRF: "Now it's time for atheists and agnostics to come out of our closet."

I chose "secularist" because the mood struck; "infidel" was close, but as you can see, there's a non-delusional shading for every occasion.

It's one of my go-to orgs, based in one of our favorite towns.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational charity, is the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics), and has been working since 1978 to keep religion and government separate.

Remember the time when FFRF called Deaf Gahan on the carpet?

Pesky church-state issues: The Freedom from Religion Foundation investigates the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

Maybe this year's event can be a weenie roast atop the smoldering remnant of a demolished public housing unit.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Deaf Gahan annexes the New Albany Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast, eyes massive redevelopment deal.

Meanwhile ... a chance to express yourself.

Join FFRF's Out of the Closet Virtual Billboard Campaign

Declare and share your nonbelief! Although the nonreligious — including one in four U.S. citizens — is a significant segment of the world population, many Americans have never knowingly met a nonbeliever. You can help dispel myths, educate and promote reason by adding your voice, face and message to FFRF's friendly neighborhood freethinker campaign. This is your chance to proclaim you're a freethinker and why. It's working for the gay rights movement. Now it's time for atheists and agnostics to come out of our closet. Many faces make Enlightenment work.

It's fun, it's easy and takes less than a minute to complete! Once your cyerboard is approved by FFRF, you may post and tweet it or use it as your Facebook or Twitter image. We even size it for use as your Facebook or Twitter image or banner.

Peculiar institutions: Eisenhower channeled the evangelists' prayer breakfast, according to Cold War logic. New Albany just borrowed the idea, which should be modified.

"His legacy is already there."
-- Lee Corso

That's right. In the beginning, a New Albanian was inspired to hold a mayoral prayer breakfast by the example of Ike, who'd been encouraged by Billy Graham in a time of Cold War consciousness. Let's pursue this narrative to the usual conclusion: "We've always done it that way" -- even though we began this tradition only in 1968, before anchors were Trump.

New Albany’s prayer breakfast celebrates 40 years, by Melissa Moody (New Albany Tribune, Nov. 8, 2008)

Wilson Waters got the idea for the New Albany Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast from Dwight Eisenhower 40 years ago. And 40 years ago, Waters and his fellow prayer breakfast committee members started the event.

“I figured they have one in Washington, why can’t we have one here,” he said. “I’m surprised it kept going, but I’m glad it did for 40 years.”

In this decade-old treatment, one prayer breakfast attendee inadvertently gets to the heart of the matter, as New Albany's annual supplicatory extravaganza actually serves as a mirror, reflecting the city's relative absence of religious diversity.

“It’s a gathering of all churches,” said Patty Wolfe. “It means so much; it’s a fellowship of people of all ages, a combination of good Christians.”

In 2017, the institution created by Eisenhower and borrowed by New Albany (as well as numerous other communities) turned 65. Interestingly, while the national version of the prayer breakfast remains associated with the presidency, it has undergone an evolution of identity to remove the direct reference to the office.

Initially called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, the name was changed in 1970 to the National Prayer Breakfast.

Predictably, it's a memo New Albany has failed to receive -- for 46 years. Jeff Gahan might take note of this, although he won't.

National Prayer Breakfast: What does its history reveal?, by Diane Winston (The Conversation)

On the morning of Feb. 2, 2017, more than 3,500 political leaders, military chiefs and corporate moguls met for eggs, sausage, muffins – and prayer. The Washington, D.C. gathering, the 65th National Prayer Breakfast, is an opportunity for new friends and old associates, from 50 states and 140 countries, to break bread and forge fellowship in Jesus’ name.

Convened on the first Thursday in February, the gathering, known as the Presidential Prayer Breakfast until 1970, has always included the American head of state. Donald Trump, in his maiden appearance, broke precedent with a powerful no holds barred speech that put other countries on notice, threatened church/state separation and mocked actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As a scholar of American religious history, I am intrigued by how presidents negotiate the intricacies of church/state relationships versus religion/politics entanglements. Most avoid the former while trying to benefit from the latter. That’s why the prayer breakfast is noteworthy – it is an opportunity for leaders to appear as Christ’s servants rather than formidable heads of state.

Faith first

President Dwight Eisenhower began the tradition with the first breakfast in 1953. While Eisenhower was initially wary of attending a prayer breakfast, evangelist Billy Graham convinced him it was the right move.

It is impossible to separate the National Prayer Breakfast from the Cold War imperatives reigning during the era of its establishment.

An American political cocktail: nationalism, religion, and nostalgia, by Heather Greene (Wild Hunt)

The morning after hangover

During this not-so-distant past, there were many politicians who, like (Senator Joseph) McCarthy, were advocating for a strong nationalism as a means of protection from foreign enemies during a time of growing global fear, and this surge of nationalism was neatly wrapped in religious rhetoric attributed to America’s great past. It is a cocktail from which America has still not fully recovered.

The tradition of the National Prayer Breakfast comes out of that time, as do the other religious components still resident in our contemporary American cultural experience, such as the pledge of allegiance and the motto.

However, it is important to note that there are other politically-based social traditions that are intertwined with similar religiosity, but were not born in that 1950s time frame. The White House Christmas tree lighting began in 1923. Irving Berlin wrote the famous song “God Bless America” in 1918. From the presidential inauguration ceremony to the patriotic songs commonly sung, religious language finds itself in many places. In fact, written into the end of every presidential proclamation at least over the past 150 years is the statement:

“IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-first.”

Much of this religious language is so well embedded into America’s systems and cultures that it is largely accepted and ignored, being challenged only periodically by religious freedom organizations.

Readers already know that if given the option, I'd consign the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast to the dustbin of history. But at the very least, shouldn't references to the mayor -- this one or any other -- be removed?

So long as public money isn't being used to fund the event, erasing the connotation of political patronage would go a log way toward neutralizing the objectionable nature of the gathering as currently constituted.

I know; we've always done it this way -- except we haven't, and this doesn't mean cobwebbed rituals can't be modified to suit modernity.

FFRF: "Now it's time for atheists and agnostics to come out of our closet."

I chose "secularist" because the mood struck; "infidel" was close, but as you can see, there's a non-delusional shading for every occasion.

It's one of my go-to orgs, based in one of our favorite towns.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational charity, is the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics), and has been working since 1978 to keep religion and government separate.

Remember the time when FFRF called Deaf Gahan on the carpet?

Pesky church-state issues: The Freedom from Religion Foundation investigates the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

Maybe this year's event can be a weenie roast atop the smoldering remnant of a demolished public housing unit.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Deaf Gahan annexes the New Albany Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast, eyes massive redevelopment deal.

Meanwhile ... a chance to express yourself.

Join FFRF's Out of the Closet Virtual Billboard Campaign

Declare and share your nonbelief! Although the nonreligious — including one in four U.S. citizens — is a significant segment of the world population, many Americans have never knowingly met a nonbeliever. You can help dispel myths, educate and promote reason by adding your voice, face and message to FFRF's friendly neighborhood freethinker campaign. This is your chance to proclaim you're a freethinker and why. It's working for the gay rights movement. Now it's time for atheists and agnostics to come out of our closet. Many faces make Enlightenment work.

It's fun, it's easy and takes less than a minute to complete! Once your cyerboard is approved by FFRF, you may post and tweet it or use it as your Facebook or Twitter image. We even size it for use as your Facebook or Twitter image or banner.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Deaf Gahan annexes the New Albany Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast, eyes massive redevelopment deal.

The Green Mouse has learned that with the 49th annual mayor's prayer breakfast just around the corner in early November, Jeff Gahan has informed local religious leaders of his intention to annex and improve the event. 

Gahan's prospective invocation absorption process was outlined in an e-mail from the mayor's official personal Hotmail account, which the Green Mouse obtained from a disgruntled HWC Engineering employee.

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Good morning, fellow New Albanian pastors, rabbis and religious authorities*,

As you are aware, the New Albany Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast has a long and noble history of steadfastly ignoring the separation of church and state, and after much time spent praying with Mrs. Nixon in the chapel we built underneath the Down Low Mayoral Command Bunker, I've decided to make the Prayer Breakfast into an official arm of city government.

My handpicked minister of propaganda Mike Hall -- Duggins is way more spiritual, but I need him elsewhere -- will run our new Department of Homeland Supplication. 

We have a nifty new logo (don't worry; there'll be the usual selection of t-shirts, hoodies and Bible covers) reflecting the proper prioritization of worship.

I'll be rebranding the community prayer breakfast and making it into a big ticket, foodie-oriented day of fervent celebration, with chef-driven biscuits and gravy and a gospel concert series: 

Mayor Jeff M. Gahan Presents New Albany's Community Prayer Breakfast and Designer Cream of Wheat Walk

Develop New Albany can help with that last part. 

But there's a surprise, because we're going to construct a brand new venue for my prayer breakfast, honoring my main man, the former mayor and A Really Great Democrat who's never missed one: 

The Warren V. Nash Community Meditation Pavilion and Conference Center 

Michell Timperman Ritz has come up with a wonderful design, and I know you're just as excited as me to be able to finally get the prayer breakfast self-supporting. 

When I asked the interim Redevelopment Commission director to pick a spot for the Nash Center, it was like one of those miracles Coffey's always babbling about, because Shane said it will fit perfectly on the east side of our newly upgraded, refurbished and paved Bono Road, between the hospital and Graybrook Lane, right there where all those poor people used to live. 

I'm so happy they moved. It's almost like God is on our side, but just to be sure, we'll make the Nash Conference Center into its own TIF district. 

By the way, not even I can move enough mountains to pull this off in 2017, so we'll do one more prayer breakfast in the NAHS cafeteria until the construction is completed for the 50th anniversary in 2018. 

If you don't mind, keep all this to yourself. We wouldn't want those assholes at the Freedom from Religion Foundation to find out and spoil the oatmeal. 

Signed, 

* I've omitted imams for obvious security reasons. 

Another mayor's prayer breakfast, another reminder to join the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

The Break Wind minaret. 

It's that time again.

New Albany basketball coach to speak at annual prayer breakfast; Jim Shannon to highlight Saturday event, by Chris Morris (News and Tribune)

Since the hullabaloo in 2014, the Genius of the Flood Plain has kept the prayer breakfast where he prefers his governance: On the Down Low.

November 15, 2015

Dude: City Hall sure soft-pedaled that mayor's prayer breakfast this year, didn't it?

The important part to remember is this:

"Government officials can worship, pray, and participate in religious events in their personal capacities. But they are not permitted to provide credibility or prestige to their religion by lending a government office and government title to religious events."

Consider becoming a member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. We are, and each year the prayer breakfast time reminds us to renew. 

BREAKING: Mayor Gahan cancels Break Wind Lofts, installs world's first Hologram Minaret.

Reason's Greetings! We've re-upped in the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

"If you have had it up to here with faith-based initiatives, creationism and clerical prying into our private lives, FFRF is the organization for you. This scrappy group brings lawsuits against church-state entanglements and puts up witty billboards and bus signs promoting, well, freedom from religion. Reason's Greetings!"
-- Katha Pollitt

Consider joining the Freedom from Religion Foundation. We recently renewed our membership, and support the valuable counterpoint FFRF provides.

Join FFRF or Renew Your Membership

Membership supports FFRF's hard-working 13-person office, our educational and legal work, and includes: Ten issues a year of 24-page Freethought Today newspaper fully reporting on FFRF actions and news, as well as "Private Line" (a twice-yearly insider report on the Foundation). It also gives you a vote during elections at the annual convention (household memberships get 2 votes), and discounted prices for FFRF books and CDs. All dues and donations are deductible for income-tax purposes.

Perhaps next year the time will be right to begin the new tradition of a shadow event: The Non-Mayor's Humanist Community Breakfast.

Anyone in?

Dude: City Hall sure soft-pedaled that mayor's prayer breakfast this year, didn't it?

Dude: City Hall sure soft-pedaled that mayor's prayer breakfast this year, didn't it?

FFRF debuts first-ever ‘atheist marquee’

In 2014, the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast was a big story, primarily because someone tipped off the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and our quaintly indefensible local ritual went national.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2014: Pesky church-state issues: The Freedom from Religion Foundation investigates the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

I'd dearly love to take credit for being the snitch, but alas, it wasn't me. However, the furor alerted me to the existence of the FFRF, which the Baylor household promptly joined, and renewed just last week.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2014: "Government officials can worship, pray, and participate in religious events in their personal capacities. But they are not permitted to provide credibility or prestige to their religion by lending a government office and government title to religious events."

In retrospect, City Hall's reaction to the FFRF's scrutiny (even the News and Tribune got in on the fun, for once) was a precursor to the scene just before the League of Women Voters "debate" in 2015, with the mayor trotting out Linda Moeller to explain that the prayer breakfast doesn't actually occur on the taxpayers' dime because people like her are able to separate time on the clock from time off it, and never mind the location at a public high school because we factor in the gas and electricity, or something like that.

As Jeff wrote:

The space used for planning meetings is publicly funded. Having a meeting at 7 a.m. doesn't change that. The same is true of the event space. The City's marketing is easy enough to see as well. Normally, a group would have to pay or otherwise provide those things via private means. In this case, the citizens of New Albany are paying for them.

In the aftermath of last year's down home camp meeting, the mayor was sufficiently flummoxed to omit the very mention of the reason for rising so early.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2014: The Mayor's Minute, missing words: "I had a wonderful time at the 46th annual mayor's breakfast last Saturday."

No community, no prayer -- just pancakes and delightful company. In 2015, the prayer breakfast was yesterday. The city spent less time (an money?) proselytizing the event, but what I wrote last year remains true.

The real core answer here is that we do it the way we do it because no one's ever thought about what it would mean to do it differently -- this as well as so many other examples of peculiar institutions existing in a vacuum outside the realm of modernity.

The more things (don't) change ...

The Mayor's Minute, missing words: "I had a wonderful time at the 46th annual mayor's breakfast last Saturday."

That's odd. Here's the way it read on the posters.

Perhaps the facts are beginning to seep in.

"Government officials can worship, pray, and participate in religious events in their personal capacities. But they are not permitted to provide credibility or prestige to their religion by lending a government office and government title to religious events."

Don't forget: Drinking Progressively: Let's make it Tuesday evenings, beginning on November 25.

"Government officials can worship, pray, and participate in religious events in their personal capacities. But they are not permitted to provide credibility or prestige to their religion by lending a government office and government title to religious events."

This morning, many City residents braved the cold to attend the 46th Annual Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast. In addition to Mayor Gahan and his family, the event was also attended by two former New Albany Mayors, Bob Real and Warren Nash. 

Make that 302 members in Indiana.

In complete candor, I'd completely forgotten about the very existence of the Freedom from Religion Foundation until learning of the FFRF's involvement with asking questions about the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

Pesky church-state issues: The Freedom from Religion Foundation investigates the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

It's an oversight easily corrected. Consider joining the Freedom from Religion Foundation. We just did.

Join FFRF or Renew Your Membership

Membership supports FFRF's hard-working 13-person office, our educational and legal work, and includes: Ten issues a year of 24-page Freethought Today newspaper fully reporting on FFRF actions and news, as well as "Private Line" (a twice-yearly insider report on the Foundation). It also gives you a vote during elections at the annual convention (household memberships get 2 votes), and discounted prices for FFRF books and CDs. All dues and donations are deductible for income-tax purposes.

"If you have had it up to here with faith-based initiatives, creationism and clerical prying into our private lives, FFRF is the organization for you. This scrappy group brings lawsuits against church-state entanglements and puts up witty billboards and bus signs promoting, well, freedom from religion. Reason's Greetings!" — Katha Pollitt

In the past, I've tended to ignore the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it just gets tiresome contemplating New Albany's persistent inability to think. However, the more I've thought about the church-state principles involved, there is a corresponding realization that the city's rote denial of direct support is a non-starting yawner.

As usual, Jeff summarizes the issue:

The space used for planning meetings is publicly funded. Having a meeting at 7 pm doesn't change that. The same is true of the event space. The City's marketing is easy enough to see as well. Normally, a group would have to pay or otherwise provide those things via private means. In this case, the citizens of New Albany are paying for them.

Naturally, the city of New Albany ignored the FFRF's request. You can almost hear the snickering: Church-state separation issues? Here in our humble Truck Through City? They're not going to make us read books or anything, are they?

As I wrote yesterday:

The real core answer here is that we do it the way we do it because no one's ever thought about what it would mean to do it differently -- this as well as so many other examples of peculiar institutions existing in a vacuum outside the realm of modernity.

Where do I sign up for the lawsuit? Following is the news release by the FFRF referenced in the newspaper article.

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FFRF urges mayor to cancel city-sponsored prayer breakfast

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national state/church watchdog with 21,500 members, including more than 300 in Indiana, is pressing Mayor Jeff Gahan of New Albany, Ind., to end the city's extensive involvement in a long-running prayer breakfast.

New Albany's 46th annual Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast is scheduled for this Sat., Nov. 15. The event is promoted on the city's website as a time to "come together to celebrate the diversity within God's family." The city also put an ad for the prayer breakfast on citizens' municipal utility bills, emphasizing the words "prayer" and "faith." City Hall's phone number is listed on both the city website and the utility insert as the number to call for more information about the prayer breakfast.

Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert sent Gahan a letter on Nov. 7 urging him to dissociate his office and the city from the prayer breakfast. "Your participation in this event, and the city's apparent coordination of the event, pose serious constitutional separation of state and church concerns," she wrote. "Since any reasonable city resident would logically interpret the city's actions in this case as government endorsement of religion, the city must refrain from expending any further taxpayer dollars, using publicly funded employees, and drawing on any other publicly funded resources to promote the religious prayer breakfast."

FFRF also sent the mayor an open records request for financial records and correspondence related to the event.

Markert directed Gahan to an injunction FFRF won against the mayor of Denver in 1993 over his promotion and endorsement of a "Day of Prayer." The court enjoined the mayor and other city officials "acting in an official capacity from promoting, endorsing, or supporting the Day of Prayer."

FFRF objects to officials lending their government titles to prayer events, as is the case with the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast. "Government officials can worship, pray, and participate in religious events in their personal capacities. But they are not permitted to provide credibility or prestige to their religion by lending a government office and government title to religious events. Their office and title belong to 'We the people,' not the office's temporary occupant," wrote Markert.

"FFRF receives so many complaints about governmental prayer, because religious sponsorship by our government turns believers into insiders, and nonbelievers — or those from minority beliefs — into outsiders. The New Albany prayer breakfast entanglement is a particularly egregious example of an inappropriate union between government and religion," said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.

FFRF, based in Madison, Wis., is North America's largest association of freethinkers.

Pesky church-state issues: The Freedom from Religion Foundation investigates the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

That's the city's phone number, isn't it? Someone's paying for those phone lines, aren't they?

I hadn't read the first word of this article, just the headline, when a thought popped quickly into my head: I'd bet a C-note or even two that the newspaper's resident traditionalist, Chris Morris, would scathingly condemn any brazen assault on such a hallowed municipal institution as a prayer breakfast (in effect) sponsored by city government.

Sure enough:

(Mayor Jeff) Gahan diverted comment on the letter to Linda Moeller, city controller. Moeller said she serves on the committee that plans and organizes the event. She said the committee, which doesn’t have appointed members, is made of volunteers, some who are city employees, but also members of the community outside of city hall.

Chris Morris, assistant editor at the News and Tribune, is on the committee.

It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Here are my Top Five reactions to the questioning of the prayer breakfast by a church-state separation group in Wisconsin.

5. But of course Chris Morris would be on the committee of a municipal prayer breakfast, and of course, as journalist, he'd never see any church-state separation issues pertaining to it -- after all, it has taken place for 46 years for a reason.

4. Say what? The mayor would not answer the question and chose instead to lob it elsewhere? How very atypical. Perhaps he'd briefly stepped out of the office to attend a city council meeting.

3. Didn't I mention the funding notion just this morning during my Alvin Dark remembrance? Yep, I sure did: "So long as tax dollars are not used in support of it ... they're not, are they?"

2. Wasn't it Walt Disney himself who said, "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing"? Well, it certainly is gratifying that after 46 years, someone (although not a journalist) finally detected a conceivable church-state separation issue and undertook to begin doing.

1. Wow, I wonder who had the temerity to make the complaint? I'd like to buy that person a Progressive Pint.

National group questions Mayor's Prayer Breakfast in New Albany, by Jerod Clapp (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — A national watchdog organization for issues pertaining to church and state separation sent a letter to New Albany regarding Saturday’s 46th Annual Mayor’s Community Prayer Breakfast.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., issued a letter to Jeff Gahan, New Albany Mayor, on Nov. 7 urging the city to discontinue the use of taxpayer dollars to plan, organize or promote the event, though city officials deny the use of city money or resources for the prayer breakfast.

Rebecca S. Markert, staff attorney for the organization and author of the letter, said the concern of the organization is whether city resources were used to promote an event geared toward one particular religion.

“I guess it depends on your definition of funding,” Markert said. “Even if the checks were written to some other organization, but they had city employees who were handling the RSVPs and sending out the invitations and taking time out of their work day to plan the breakfast ... they’re still taking up city resources and expenditures because they’re being paid for their time.”

Along with a letter to the mayor, the Freedom From Religion Foundation submitted an open records request for financial records pertaining to the breakfast, as well as correspondence from city employees about the event and copies of invitations and other documents to event speakers or hosts.

On the late Alvin Dark, atheism and NA's annual mayor's prayer breakfast.

There is a brief but real connection between baseball lifer Alvin Dark, "a Southern Baptist known throughout baseball as a devout Christian," and the city of New Albany.

I will explain. First, his obituary in the New York Times.

Alvin Dark, 92, Is Dead; Led Giants to 3 Pennants

... Amid the triumphs and the turbulent times in his long baseball career, the epic 1951 season stood out for Dark. He looked back on the Giants’ memorable pennant run in the light of his religious faith.

In an interview for the book “The Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff” (1975), by Thomas Kiernan, Dark said, “I kind of perceive a scheme in the whole thing.”

“You don’t believe it was the Lord’s plan?” he added. “How could it have been otherwise?”

Dark died only days before the renewal of a longstanding New Albany civic institution, the Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast.

46th Annual Mayor’s Community Prayer Breakfast
New Albany High School Cafeteria
Saturday, November 15th 8:30 AM
Tickets are $8 in advance or $9 at the door.

The Mayor's Community Prayer Breakfast is a long-standing tradition held at the beginning of the holiday season that gives our community the opportunity to unite citizens of all ages and faiths. We come together to celebrate the diversity within God's family and to give thanks for the blessings of our community and its people.

It will not surprise regular readers when I say that as an atheist, such an openly religious event sponsored by government on public school property is superfluous at best, and probably violates any reasonable tenet of church-state separation. However, so long as tax dollars are not used in support of it ... they're not, are they?

Here's the unexpected punch line: Once I actually attended a mayor's prayer breakfast, circa 1977 or thereabouts, for the sole purpose of meeting Alvin Dark and thanking him for managing the Oakland A's to two division titles and a World Series championship. My recollection is that the breakfast was held at Scribner (then) Junior High School.

I shook his hand, accomplished my aim, and that was that.

Admittedly, these convergences -- religion, irreligion and proper bunting technique -- prompt speculation on my part. Forget for a moment whether an independent candidate might ever be elected mayor of New Albany. Can an atheist? If so, what would become of the mayor's prayer breakfast with a non-believer at the helm? Would atheism be woven into the rote routine, as with the Huntsville (AL) City Council's newly inclusionary prayer policies?

A name change might suffice, as in the Mayor's Community Reflection Breakfast.

If a politically independent atheist became mayor of New Albany, there'd be many such occasions requiring the parsing of protocol. Perhaps the best way to cope with these would be the retention of a former Democrat, turned Republican, church-going staff member. It would be like having a multilingual translator available at all times, suitable to convey culturally sensitive messages like this one:

"Excuse me, Bill/Billie ... could you send John Rosenbarger in, please? This toilet desperately needs scrubbing."