Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

Although he was invited to give the usual opening prayer at the beginning of a session of the Kansas House of Representatives, Father James Gordon of St. John Vianney Catholic school of Maple Hills, Kansas used the occasion to call for a return to the moral values that made this nation great.

According to the Lawrence Journal World, Father Gordon surprised everyone when he stood in front of the House and issued a passionate prayer calling for renewed respect for traditional values.

“We ask you to strengthen our understanding of traditional marriage: one man and one woman. We ask you to bring us back to virtuous morals in society, morals that kept us from killing a child in the womb through abortion. We ask you to defend us now in the fight for true religious freedom and freedom of conscience, that seems to be threatened now in the public sphere.”

Some members of the House felt the prayer exceeded the boundaries set by the House, which call for prayers to be neutral and ecumenical. House Minority Leader Paul Davis, D-Lawrence, said the prayer was “inappropriate” and “needs to be ecumenical.”

Thomas Witt, executive director of a gay activist group known as the Kansas Equality Coalition, said, “Prayers at the beginning of the each day’s session of the Legislature are meant to ask for the blessings of the creator. Using prayer to launch political attacks against one’s opponents is unacceptable.”

Father Gordon’s prayer may not have been politically correct, but it was certainly welcomed by those lawmakers who are fighting to preserve the values he so bravely annunciated. 

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