*TWEET* Improper cross block on five twenty-one! Do over!

SOURCES: http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/free/20130522arizona-house-non-prayer-sparks-christian-re-do.html  AND http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/arizona-house-prayer_n_3322240.html

The Arizona House of Representatives opens each days session with a prayer and the pledge of allegience.  Tuesday, Representative Mendez offered a non-theistic recognition of the shared humanity of all those working. Instead of bowing heads, he encouraged everyone to look around at the other people in the room. He also quoted Carl Sagan, saying, "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."

But some would not let this prattle stand!

The following day (Wednesday), Representative Smith lead the chamber in prayer, then led the chamber in a second prayer for "repentence." Rep. Smith felt that the previous day's contribution by Rep. Mendez was not a for-real prayer.

"When there's a time set aside to pray and to pledge, if you are a non-believer, don't ask for time to pray," said Smith, of Maricopa. "If you don't love this nation and want to pledge to it, don't say I want to lead this body in the pledge, and stand up there and say, `you know what, instead of pledging, I love England' and (sit) down.

"That's not a pledge, and that wasn't a prayer, it's that simple," Smith said.

I'm not sure why Rep. Smith turns from religion to pledging allegience to a nation (actually, I'm pretty sure I'm *exactly* sure why), but Smith's opinion wasn't the only one.

Rep. Jamescita Peshlakai, whose district is a Navaho reservation, also had a response:

"I want to remind the House and my colleagues and everybody here that several of us here are not Christianized. I'm a traditional Navajo, so I stand here every day and participate in prayers," even without personally embracing them, [...] "This is the United States, this is America, and we all represent different people ... and you need to respect that. Your God is no more powerful than my God. We all come from the same creator."

I attempted to get a reaction from The Lord Almighty, No God but God -- as the deity most directly responsible for the creation of our world and all ideas within it  -- but The Lord did not respond by the press time for this blog post.

PS. For a fun game, try to guess which political parties each person mentioned in today's story belongs to.