{"id":333,"date":"2013-06-16T19:22:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T19:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/2013\/06\/16\/interview-on-corbett-concerning-wilkes-barre-city-council-government-led-prayer\/"},"modified":"2013-08-20T12:06:02","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T12:06:02","slug":"interview-on-corbett-concerning-wilkes-barre-city-council-government-led-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/2013\/06\/16\/interview-on-corbett-concerning-wilkes-barre-city-council-government-led-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Vacula on &#8220;Corbett&#8221; concerning Wilkes-Barre City Council 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\" \/><\/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>Justin Vacula 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 his June 13, 2013 address to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wilkes-barre.pa.us\/citycouncil.php\">Wilkes-Barre City Council<\/a> in which he objected to government-led prayer at council meetings and urged council to remove prayer from future governmental functions. Listen to his interview embedded below within this piece.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"230\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F97152533&auto_play=false&visual=true\"><\/iframe>\n<p>Vacula &#8212; repeating some remarks he made before council &#8212; explained that government-led prayer is exclusionary, divisive, unwelcome, and unnecessary. Further, he 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; Vacula argued &#8212; should not be subjected to government-endorsed prayer.<\/p>\n<p>Corbett largely agreed with Vacula&#8217;s 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; Corbett is not optimistic, though, concerning whether council will remove prayer because, he says, they are not listening to Vacula and are of an old-school mentality &#8220;liking their Christian prayer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watch Vacula&#8217;s address to council below and read more concerning his 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Justin Vacula appeared on the June 14, 2013 episode of &#8220;Corbett&#8221; on WILK Newsradio to discuss his June 13, 2013 address to Wilkes-Barre City Council in which he objected to government-led prayer at council meetings and urged council to remove prayer from future governmental functions. Listen to his interview embedded below within this piece. Vacula [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}