Public Prayers: Is the Secularist Society right?

The National Secularist Society are seeking to use human rights legislation to ban a local council praying to God before council meetings.

Here’s an unbiased report from the Press Association.

Here’s George Pitcher in the Daily Mail, using the "this is a Christian country" argument.

Here’s the National Secularist Society's take.

Here are a couple of observations:

• Christians might actually agree with the NSS stance on this. It's worth asking whether it's a good idea that councillors pray as a matter of agenda-decreed routine. Could this be a little like "collective acts of worship" in schools, where thousands of children mumble a Lord’s Prayer they don’t mean, sing a song such as “Give me oil in my lamp” they don’t like, and decide that Christianity has nothing relevant to say?
• Would it be worth saying to our friends and colleagues not “This is a ridiculous attack on our national church” but “Maybe the NSS does have a point here. After all, Jesus himself got really annoyed by people saying things they didn't really mean. In fact, Jesus often clashed with people who thought of themselves as religious, I wonder if you know that?"
• Bideford Council voted on this issue—and decided to carry on praying. So the NSS is taking them to court. It's legitimate to ask whether the NSS believes in democracy (even when people disagree with them), or not? They often use the argument that the majority of British citizens no longer go to church (see the article). But isn't that irrelevant if there is a cause which trumps democratic will?
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