The Greece ChurchState
“It’s a church!”
“No, it’s a state!”
“Stop that– you’re both right! Greece Town is actually both a church, and a state.” That’s right, kids, this is one of the many efficiencies that Town Supervisor John Auberger has brought to Greece*:
Pastors from more than a dozen churches led a series of prayers for politicians, civil servants and volunteers who serve Greece. They were introduced by Greece Town Supervisor John Auberger, for whom prayers were also said at the service.
“It’s a blessing, not only for myself but for our other elected and appointed officials, to have the prayers and support of the people in our community,” he said.
Nothing wrong with praying for our electeds, we’ve done that even in my flaming liberal church. But it does seem to blur the church-state separation line, when you have the Town Super emcee-ing the ceremony. Especially in a town which seems to have a history of combining church and state. To the point that residents clearly recognize that it’s a ChurchState:
Dianne Polvino-Hopkins of Greece attended and said that local, state and national leaders need prayers.
“With all the problems we have we’re going to definitely need God,” Polvino-Hopkins said. “I’m pleased to live in a town that’s not afraid to combine government and God.”
Danger, Will Robinson.
* Efficiencies that include, but are not limited to, having their electeds do double duty at the county level!
Related posts:
Greece is one of the least democratic (in the political not the party sense) of a fairly undemocratic westside. Citiznes routinely complain they have no access to the supervisor only to his non-elected spokesperson,or his unelected deputy. Many religious leaders tacitly support this distance form citizen accoutability with their view that representatives are accountable to the deity first of all and only incidentally to the citizens since the political space is god’s property not ours. that last proposition is more typical of a theocracy then a democracy. I don;t know why our local political opposition doesn’t make more of a stink about this lack of accountability
[...] The Greece Board of Education, AKA the board that can’t shoot straight, stepped into their own poo again. This time, mixing Christianity with public education. Well, it’s Greece after all… where else? The town being sued for Christian prayers at town board meetings. The town that began the new year with Christian prayers for its government. [...]
[...] Prayer case moves forward. We have written about this before and looks like the case makes it to the State Supreme Court this [...]