The Huntington Beach City Council voted 4–2–1 on May 16 for its mayor to select who opens its meetings with an invocation, instead of an interfaith council that has done so for decades.
The council’s new conservative majority, in February, requested the city investigate changing the policy claiming a group known as the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council—which consists of religious leaders of various faiths—had been giving politicized speeches.
“In very recent years, the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council, which the city has utilized for invocations has become highly political, and invocations at times have become political soapboxing opportunities,” said Mayor Pro Tem Gracey Van Der Mark during the February meeting….