For more than 30 years, Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meetings have opened with an invocation prayer. This coming Tuesday, that could continue indefinitely if Alaskans and others send an email to the Borough Assembly and/or call in or show up at the 6pm meeting held at the Borough building.

The ACLU wants it to stop the invocation prayer and has sued the Kenai Peninsula Borough over its current policy. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, the Borough has constructed a policy that has been proven and tested by the federal courts. The policy, in part, currently states,

“All religious associations with an established presence in the Kenai Peninsula Borough that regularly meet for the primary purpose of sharing a religious perspective, or chaplains who may serve one of more of the fire departments, law enforcement agencies, hospitals, or other similar organizations in the borough, are eligible to provide invocations to the assembly, and the authorized leader of any such association or chaplain can make an online submission to provide an invocation to the borough clerk.”

Clearly, the people of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, in a recent poll in the Peninsula Clarion, stated they wish for the invocations to continue. In all of the past votes, the Borough Assembly has also voted to keep the invocation even with the threat of a lawsuit. This lawsuit now brought before the state court in Alaska has not deterred the majority of the Assembly, the faith community, or the citizens of the Kenai Peninsula. They continue to honor what happens every day in our federal government, our state government, and many other agencies and public meetings throughout Alaska. To date, demonstrated support through emails is almost equal to keep or kill the invocation.

As Alaskans and others, you can support the invocation policy in three ways:

1. Personally testify at the meeting or call into the meeting to state your support. Call in information can be found on the Borough website depending on your location.

2. Send a simple email sent to the Assembly members stating your support at http://www.kpb.us/assembly-clerk/clerks-office/clerks-forms/email-assembly-members.

3. Pray for God’s best for our citizens and borough officials through this Tuesday’s meeting.

We can continue to see God brought into the public square by your support. This has been a part of American public meetings since the founding of our country. Read these words of Benjamin Franklin as he spoke to President George Washington:

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages.

I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”

Make a difference in protecting our religious freedom in Alaska by supporting invocation prayers in the Kenai Peninsula today with your response. It is not just for our Borough, but for all of Alaskans.