During an annual review last week for the adoption of a resolution to proclaim inclusivity in Philomath, City Councilor Brent Kaseman introduced a recommendation that would add a reference to God in the document’s language.
The current version of the proclamation includes a line that states “Philomath strives to be a city based on mutual respect and understanding, a community that welcomes and values all residents, and treats everyone with human dignity and respect.”
Kaseman’s suggestion, which ended up becoming a motion, was to extend the statement to include … “because they are made in the image of God.”
In explaining his reasoning behind the suggestion, Kaseman referenced the Declaration of Independence.
“I took a look back at it and the rights that we have to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from our creator and so I think if we’re making an objective statement that we should treat everyone with human dignity and respect is to ground that in something,” Kaseman said. “And so I would recommend (the revision) because we are made in the image of God.”
Councilors Diane Crocker, Jessica Andrade and Teresa Nielson each provided their perspectives.
Cocker said that she believes “that government and religion should be separated … I am not comfortable with that. Even though it is my belief, I don’t want to push it on others, I think.”
Nielson, who seconded Kaseman’s motion, said, “I think as Brent has described, I think our country was founded on a Christian belief and a God. Yes, we’ve gotten away from that in a lot of the proclamations and documents that we’re currently forming but I don’t know — maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
Nielson added that perhaps the language should not be specific to God but reworded in a way to reference “faith or belief or higher being.”
Andrade doesn’t believe the revision should be made at all and explained her reasoning.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to add in here, especially considering the idea of separation of religion and government,” Andrade said. “I know that you’re not necessarily stating religion by invoking a higher power or anything like that but then there are also people who actually don’t believe that there is one.”
Andrade added that the revision could create issues.
“There’s a lot of positive and negative connotations associated with this idea and it can be very traumatic to some people,” she said.
City Councilor Rich Saalsaa interjected that the suggestion is a fairly material change to come before the council at that time.
“The only thing that I have an issue with is that it’s gone this far and this kind of discussion would be more appropriate at the committee level,” Saalsaa said. “I would not be comfortable making that kind of change without first going through due process with the committee that actually created this to begin with.”
That led to councilors leaning toward the issue going to the Inclusivity Committee with no real need for an immediate vote to take place on the resolution’s adoption. Thus, Kaseman volunteered to withdraw his motion.
Another motion was then unanimously approved for the Inclusivity Committee to consider Kaseman’s recommendation.
I strongly object to adding language referring to “god or higher power”
There is no need for it and it crosses the line separating church and state.
Adding that we are all made in the image of God is the most inclusive part of the text. It solidifies that we all share that common ground no matter what. That is not including church with the state, even if you don’t believe in God it still lays a solid foundation of unity. It’s not demanding that you worship or is it preaching to you nor is it forcing anyone to believe a certain belief. The founding fathers believed that our rights came not from government but from the fact that we as humans inherently have rights.
This “suggestion” to add “god” to the proclamation is incredibly inappropriate and leads me to question Councilor Kaseman’s judgement on ongoing City matters. The freedom FROM religion is the law of the land and quoting slave-owning white men is never a good look. Perhaps Kaseman should consider leaving the bible-thumping at home and make a commitment to separating his personal beliefs from City business.
In my personal capacity: I want to thank everyone that engaged with this conversation. The Inclusivity Proclamation is presented as a strong moral proclamation, even a moral clarion call to treat people with dignity. My recommendation was an effort to ground and justify that call. As I mentioned elsewhere, if we do not ground the call to treat human beings with dignity in the belief that humans are created in the image of God, what do we ground it in? In a moral paradigm and philosophically, one must justify one’s belief. Thanks for the dialogue!