Should city officials allow prayer events to be publicized through government mailings?

That is the question one Metro Detroit municipality is facing after being confronted by the nation’s "largest atheist/agnostic association."

According to letters obtained by MLive.com, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is rebuking Warren officials for publicizing a National Day of Prayer event through residents' water bills, using taxpayer money.

Rebecca Market, staff attorney for Freedom From Religion Foundation, said this is the second year the organization has protested the city's promotion of the prayer event.



“It is very troubling that the mayor would choose to ignore our letter, which was sent on behalf of a local Warren resident. The constitutional concerns addressed in last year’s letter have recurred with this year’s upcoming event,” reads an April 21 letter from Market to Warren city attorney James Biernat.

Markert said the group sent a letter to Warren Mayor James Fouts last year after hearing about the event, but the letter was ignored.

“It is grossly inappropriate for the City to use its invoicing system as a mechanism for promoting the National Day of Prayer,” reads the April 2010 letter from Markert to Fouts.

In a response to Markert’s letter from this year, Fouts says the prayer event will go on as scheduled from noon to 12:45 p.m. May 5 at Warren City Hall, One City Square.

“In my opinion, our founding fathers by adopting the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights feared a state-sponsored religion,” reads a letter dated April 26 from Fouts. “Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. There is a world of difference.”

In the letter, Fouts says the event is not sponsored by any “religious group or denomination … It is scheduled in Warren annually to give all peoples an opportunity to pray in public."

According to The Macomb Daily, this isn't the first-time Warren officials and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have butted heads. The newspaper reports the organization previously opposed numerous actions involving the city, including an instance involving the city endorsing Christianity through placement of the crèche at city hall in 2009.

So, who’s right? The Freedom From Religion Foundation? City officials? Neither? Both? Should municipalities in Metro Detroit be allowed to publicize prayer events through government mailings?