The controversial High Court ban on local councils saying prayers before their meetings will not hit Marlborough town council after all.
This is because the appearance of the Rev Andrew Studdert-Kennedy, Marlborough’s rural dean, takes place before the official council agenda begins. And so is not considered – at least technically — to be an actual part of the meeting.
This is the advice that numerous town and parish councils are now taking, Derek Wolfe, Marlborough’s new town clerk, revealed.
“Prayers at town council meetings here have never been part of the formal agenda,” he told Marlborough News Online. “I take the view that it is perfectly legitimate for us to continue as we have in the past.”
“The issue at Bideford town council, where this issue arose, is because prayers are actually on the agenda. It’s all been a bit of a storm in the hassock as far as Marlborough is concerned.”
And Marlborough’s atheist mayor, Councillor Alexander Kirk Wilson, agrees, though he has nevertheless accepted the Rev Studdert-Kennedy as his chaplain during his year of office.
“The whole controversy is completely crackers,” he said. “Certainly as a non-believer I take a very dim view of the petulance and small-mindedness of the complainant. It is the sort of behaviour that gives us atheists a bad name.”
“If in council meetings we were dealing with loopy religious fundamentalists, busy promoting God’s plans regarding birth control or abortion or some such, maybe there would be an issue.”
“But not in England or in Marlborough.”
