League City Mayor Tim Paulissen
The notorious far left Wisconsin atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation threatened the League City Council demanding they refrain from prayer before their meetings.
League City mayor Tim Paulissen told them to buzz off.
Chron.com reported, via The New American:
The League City letter is addressed to Mayor Tim Paulissen and asks that League City’s council members not open their meetings with prayer, claiming it is a waste of taxpayer dollars and alienates those that identify with the 19 percent of the country that consider themselves not religious.
“Prayer at government meetings is unnecessary, inappropriate, and divisive. Council members are free to pray privately or to worship on their own time in their own way. They do not need to worship on taxpayers’ time,” says the letter sent on July 15.
“The best solution is for Council to drop these prayers altogether.”
Mayor Paulissen says that they have no plans to change their meeting format.
“The city has been doing this since 1962, and nobody has ever complained, to my knowledge,” said the mayor this afternoon. “It’s not just my stance. I have the full support of those on the city council, too.”
The council has a rotating list of pastors and laymen that pray each meeting. Paulissen doesn’t see this as a waste of taxpayers’ money, as the FFRF alleges.
“It’s not a waste of taxpayers’ money. Everybody supports the prayer. It’s non-denominational in content,” he says.
“This is what our forefathers did, too,” he adds, mentioning that the first Continental Congress even prayed before their official business.
The mayor says that he has been inundated with supportive emails since the letter was made public, and has done a few radio interviews.
“I’m not trying to dodge anyone,” he says.
Paulissen has lived in League City since 1994, and has been on the council since 2007. He was elected mayor in 2011.
You can write Mayor Paulissen here and thank him for standing up for American values.
