{"id":3005,"date":"2013-06-16T18:36:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T18:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/?p=3005"},"modified":"2013-06-16T19:22:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T19:22:46","slug":"interview-on-corbett-concerning-wilkes-barre-city-council-government-led-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/2013\/06\/16\/interview-on-corbett-concerning-wilkes-barre-city-council-government-led-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview on &#8220;Corbett&#8221; concerning Wilkes-Barre City Council government-led prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2921\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/files\/2013\/06\/wb-prayer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2921\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2921\" alt=\"&quot;Man Objects To Prayers Before City Council Meetings&quot; c\/o WNEP TV-16\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/files\/2013\/06\/wb-prayer-300x168.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/files\/2013\/06\/wb-prayer-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/files\/2013\/06\/wb-prayer.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2921\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Man Objects To Prayers Before City Council Meetings&#8221; c\/o WNEP TV-16<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I appeared on the June 14, 2013 episode of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wilknewsradio.com\/Corbett-s-Corner\/7074698\">Corbett&#8221;<\/a> on WILK Newsradio to discuss my June 13, 2013 address to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wilkes-barre.pa.us\/citycouncil.php\">Wilkes-Barre City Council<\/a> in which I objected to government-led prayer at council meetings and urged council to remove prayer from future governmental functions. Listen to my interview embedded below within this piece.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F97152533&visual=true\"><\/iframe>\n<p>I &#8212; repeating some remarks I made before council &#8212; explained that government-led prayer is exclusionary, divisive, unwelcome, and unnecessary. Further, I noted that the prayer &#8212; contrary to some news reporting &#8212; was not before meetings, but rather was <strong>during<\/strong> meetings &#8211; after the Pledge of Allegiance which is featured on meeting agendas. Citizens who attend public meetings (many religious, non-religious, and from diverse religious traditions) &#8212; I argue &#8212; should not be subjected to government-endorsed prayer.<\/p>\n<p>Corbett largely agreed with my remarks in the interview; he considered Wilkes-Barre City Council prayer, led by Councilwoman <strong>Maureen Lavelle<\/strong>, to be &#8220;out of line&#8221; and &#8220;bad public policy.&#8221; He is not optimistic, though, concerning whether council will remove prayer because, he says, they are not listening to me and are of an old-school mentality &#8220;liking their Christian prayer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watch my address to council below and read more concerning my objection to council prayer in <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/2013\/06\/15\/wbprayer\/\">this extensive piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Justin Vacula objects to prayer at Wilkes-Barre City Council meeting - June 14, 2013\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5fjFxZJpF_s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As always, free to to join the discussion by adding your comments. If you are commenting on a particular point in my conversation with Corbett, please indicate a timestamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I appeared on the June 14, 2013 episode of &#8220;Corbett&#8221; on WILK Newsradio to discuss my June 13, 2013 address to Wilkes-Barre City Council in which I objected to government-led prayer at council meetings and urged council to remove prayer from future governmental functions. Listen to my interview embedded below within this piece. I &#8212; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,16,22,25,30,38,40,48,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-council-prayer","category-government","category-local","category-me-in-the-media","category-my-appearances","category-politics","category-prayer","category-separation-of-church-and-state","category-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/justinvacula\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}