Candidate number one is the city of Mustang Mayor Ross Duckett who was my guest on this program last week.  If you listened to the program last week you heard Mayor Duckett say things that gave the impression that he began to realize that he had crossed the line that separates church and state when he advertised the Mayor’s prayer breakfast officially endorsing the Christian religion and gubernatorial candidate Steve Largent.  Mayor Duckett promoted his prayer breakfast in a city newsletter, paid for at taxpayer expense and mailed at taxpayer expense (for more information click here).  On the radio, last week it seemed like he was beginning to grasp how that was upsetting some of the tax paying citizens of Mustang.  Some Mustang citizens said he made them feel like second-class citizens in their own city and complained that he had forced them to pay to support religious indoctrination and practices against their will and against the constitution of the United States.

Unfortunately, Mayor Duckett doesn’t seem to get it. 

Last Thursday, in the weekly column that he writes for the Mustang News -- which bills itself at “the fastest growing newspaper in Oklahoma” -- Mayor Duckett wrote a column entitled, “Intolerance fuels prayer breakfast foes.”  In the article he wrote about intolerance in Nigeria (where two men were sentenced to death for becoming Christians), and intolerance in Afghanistan (where two Christian missionaries were arrested and held hostage for sharing their faith), and then he went on to talk about the people who listen to the "Religious Talk" radio program and said he “was surprised and shocked” to learn that people thought he was violating the constitution by hosting a prayer breakfast.   He then recounted an incident last year where someone complained about his prayer breakfast and he was unable to get the person to understand, “no one was compelled to attend and that all of us are free to worship in a manner dictated by our faith.”

You make the call.  Should we give Mayor Duckett the “Thick as a Brick” award?  Does the Mayor seem to be a little too “thick” for not being able to comprehend that people are not complaining about being forced to attend his prayer service, they are complaining about being forced to help pay for their city mayor’s worship service -- as well as for his religious and political endorsements?

Before you cast your vote.  Check out the other candidates for the “Thick as a Brick” award.

Candidate number two is Oklahoma City District Attorney Wes Lane.  In the Saturday May 4 issue of the Daily Oklahoman there is an article on a "faith-based initiative" (for more information click here) sponsored by the Christian Leadership Foundation, in which Oklahoma City mayor Kirk Humphries and District Attorney Wes Lane are proposing to station a full-time Christian “community builder” in each of Oklahoma City’s middle schools.   These "Christian 'community builders'" are advertised as being mentors and counselors.  They are not supposed to be evangelists proselytizing students for the Christian faith.   District Attorney Wes Lane, however, doesn’t seem to understand that the constitution prohibits holding public school children hostage to officially sanctioned, thinly disguised Christian evangelism.  The paper quotes Wes Lane as saying, “Most important of all, this project introduces children to a relationship with Jesus Christ, and the studies are so very clear that children who engage in the worship of God are far and away less likely to engage in crime.”

Again, you make the call.  Should we give District Attorney Wes Lane the “Thick as a brick” award?  Does the District Attorney seem to be a little too ‘thick’ for not being able to comprehend that introducing “children to a relationship with Jesus Christ,” is evangelism and proselytization and that any tax dollars and any official government sanction for this kind of activity is prohibited by the first amendment to the Constitution?

But, before you cast your vote.  Check out the other candidates for the “Thick as a Brick” award.