3 COUNCIL MEMBERS GOING TO PRAYER EVENT.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- At least three Santa Clarita City Council members will attend Thursday's prayer breakfast at the Valencia Hyatt, but no city staff will go.

The keynote speaker at the privately sponsored Mayor's Prayer Breakfast is Ralph Drollinger, who called Catholicism a false religion and castigated mothers who are also legislators in Sacramento, saying their first priority should be raising their children.

Mayor Marsha McLean is scheduled to speak at the event, which is organized by the Dunamis Group, a Christian business men's group. So far, more than 240 people have registered to attend the event.

Councilmen Tim Ben Boydston and Bob Kellar said they will attend. Council members Frank Ferry and Laurene Weste could not be reached to say what their plans are.

"I don't know a lot about it because I've never been to the prayer breakfast before, but I'm very interested to go to the prayer breakfast," Boydston said. "I think the City Council could use all the prayer we could get."

No city staff members plan to attend, said Gail Ortiz, a spokeswoman for the city.

Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita, a former mayor, will be in Sacramento and cannot attend, but he recorded a taped address for the event.

"I just encouraged the attendees and thanked them for their support, and offered my encouragement to Mayor McLean, because I know it can be challenging, and she will feel some pressure for participating in it," he said.

Smyth, who recently spoke at a West Ranch Town Council meeting about the challenges of being in Sacramento away from his family, said he disagrees with Drollinger's criticism of state legislators who are also mothers. Drollinger is president of Capitol Ministries, based in Sacramento.

"I don't subscribe to those comments," Smyth said. "I think being a legislator is a difficult job, and I certainly congratulate anyone who's willing to do it. And it's just as hard on fathers as well as mothers."

Both Boydston and Kellar, who said they are Christians, said they might attend Thursday's Santa Clarita Valley Interfaith Council prayer meeting outside City Hall, if their schedules allow it. That event was organized to involve more faiths out of concern that the prayer breakfast is singularly Christian.

Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, an annual event that was first created in a resolution signed in 1952 by President Harry S. Truman. The resolution was amended in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan, scheduling the event on the first Thursday in May.

But the idea of a federal proclamation for nationwide prayer has never had universal support. Back in 1808, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to a minister that he opposed it on constitutional grounds.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa participated in an interfaith mayor's prayer breakfast on March 3. Former Montana Gov. Judy Martz on Thursday will be the guest speaker at Lancaster's 16th annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast.

Santa Clarita's third annual prayer breakfast has been advertised as the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast, but the mayor is not sponsoring the event.

Kellar said he will attend Thursday out of curiosity.

"I know it's a very controversial issue, but I do want to attend," Kellar said. "There's a possibility I'll be mayor next year, and I want to see what's going on first-hand."

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