CONTROVERSY ON MENU AT PRAYER BREAKFAST.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- The keynote speaker at Thursday's Santa Clarita Mayor's Prayer Breakfast is an evangelical leader who called Catholicism a false religion and accused women legislators of abandoning their children.

While it is not sponsored by the city of Santa Clarita, the annual prayer breakfast typically draws the city's mayor, some City Council members and other local officials.

Mayor Marsha McLean said she plans to speak briefly at the event and will talk about her experience seeing many religions co-exist peacefully when she worked in Israel for the U.S. government. Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita, a former City Council member, is tentatively scheduled to speak.

The keynote speaker at the $25-a-head breakfast at the Hyatt Valencia will be Ralph Drollinger, president of Sacramento-based Capitol Ministries. Women legislators in Sacramento donned kitchen aprons in 2004 to protest against Drollinger after he called them sinners for leaving their children at home to work in the Capitol.

Drollinger also was rebuked for calling Catholicism a false religion.

Thursday's 7 a.m. breakfast is being organized by a Christian organization called the Dunamis Group. Organizer Joe Messina said he picked Drollinger to address the prayer breakfast in response to critical e-mails he received about the event.

"I brought him in because what he does is kind of what they're telling us we shouldn't do," he said, "where you can't mix religion and politics, or politicians shouldn't talk about religion, and that's crazy to me."

McLean distanced herself from Drollinger's comments about women legislators in the state Capitol.

"I believe that a woman can choose her own career and her choice could be either to stay home or to work," McLean said. "And I think it makes no difference with the love that she has to give to her children."

In response to the breakfast, which is happening on the National Day of Prayer, the Santa Clarita Valley Interfaith Council will hold an event at noon the same day outside City Hall.

"It's their event and they're running it their way, and bless them for going ahead with it," said the Rev. George McLeary, president of the Interfaith Council. "But it isn't as inclusive as we like to be on the Interfaith Council."

Participants in the interfaith event will offer prayers from the Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, American Indian and pagan traditions, according to organizers.

Drollinger is a Santa Clarita Valley resident who played basketball on the University of California, Los Angeles, 1975 championship team and was briefly in the NBA. Now, he is a seminary student who tours the country, bringing his message to legislators in state capitals.

Sean Wallentine, vice president of Capitol Ministries, said that the best outcome from Thursday's prayer breakfast would be for any participants to become Christians because of it. He also said that unlike the Interfaith Council, his group believes that faith in Jesus is the only path.

"I would just say they're allowed to have their meeting," he said, "but we wouldn't be supportive of a meeting that taught that there are many ways to heaven. There are not."

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