An independent councillor of Wellington Town Council in Shropshire made a show of listening to Bob Dylan on his iPhone while prayers were said at the start of a Council meeting.
Councillor Pat McCarthy, 53, an independent member, outraged his colleagues and was accused of ‘disgusting’ behaviour after he wore headphones during the Lord's Prayer on 8 June 2010.
The row began last month when Mr McCarthy called for compulsory prayers at the start of meetings of the full Council to be replaced by a ‘pre-meeting’ with prayers where attendance was voluntary. This week he was saying that he felt ‘compulsory’ prayers did not belong on the Council’s agenda.
‘It makes the whole Council into a Christian enclave – a club with insiders and outsiders. I just feel that this is totally wrong – no one has explained to me why we should have prayers at a council meeting.’
Mr McCarthy also described the criticism of his decision to listen to music on his iPhone as over the top. ‘Wellington Town Council is like going back to the 1950s. I think it’s their intolerance that is shameful.’
However, his actions drew criticism from his colleagues. Immediately after the meeting Councillor Miles Hosken said he wanted his disgust at Councillor McCarthy’s actions to be minuted.
The row is seen as a continuation of a campaign by secularists to drive out Christian principles and traditions from British public life. The National Secular Society (NSS) has instructed a solicitor to take its battle with Bideford Town Council in Devon, to the High Court, claiming the policy of saying prayers breaches human rights. It claims that holding prayers before council meetings is ‘not appropriate in modern-day Britain’.
Speaking last month, the Anglican Bishop of Shrewsbury strongly defended the right of the Council to pray when it meets. The Rt Rev Mark Rylands said:
‘The saying of prayers before meetings is an integral part of the British system of government. Those who do not wish to pray can easily absent themselves from the prayers or merely remain silent while those around them pray.’