To the editor:
Re: Keep Church and State Separate, July 15 Capital News.
According to the writer: “Politicians in this city…have separated church and state despite their own beliefs.”
Unfortunately that is far from correct.
One only has to go to a council meeting and witness one of the councillors opening the meeting with a prayer. Always a Christian prayer, in my experience, though there may have been other religions represented that I don’t know about.
I’ve also seen our current mayor publicly praying at a World Day of Prayer in the Waterfront Park, organized by some of the local Christian churches.
There is also the contentious issue of giving churches of all faiths and denominations generous exemptions for property taxes that cost the general public, whether supporters or not, many hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
Thus, there really never has been any true separation of church and state, yet it is high time that it were so. Religion simply does not belong in the affairs of state.
Guy King,
Kelowna
