To have objected to ‘prayers’ at work

[Iamthewintersale]

Will try to keep this brief… Work in a team of 12, 6 in U.K. and 6 in USA ( mid-west) and once a week we have a team meeting that we take turns in running.

Tomorrow is the turn of A. A is a Republican, church goer, voted Trump because she wanted, quote ‘More money in my pocket book and illegals dealt with’.
So far so MAGA. This came up pre-election as she’s the only Trump fan on the team and was open about it.

On the agenda for the meeting is ‘Prayer’ as point one. I pinged manager a note saying what?? A thinks it would be nice to start off with a prayer. As a team. I have asked for it to be OFF the agenda. US manager thinks it’s ‘harmless’ but has said will clarify.

AIBU to think it’s totally inappropriate??? I’m an atheist for a start, most of my U.K. team are the same or at least agnostic.

Seems weird that she’s never tried this before, but suddenly Trump ‘god saved me to MAGA’ is inaugurated and a team prayer is in the agenda.
We are a large global company, BTW, not some local mom & pop outfit that sells bibles…

YANBU - work is secular. She keeps her views and prayers to herself own time.

YABU - lighten up, what harm can it do.

It will be

"lets pray for our brothers and sisters displaced by the LA wildfires"
"and let us be thankful for blah di blah blah"

I'm American and work for a US company. This is insanely inappropriate and not at all a common/accepted business practice in America

It's also not legal in the US.

But it's a good story and there's nothing MN likes better than a good froth about those awful, awful Americans.

I believe it was last night that a thread was started claiming that an American school was forcing teen boys and girls to shower together at school.

"There's a sucker born every minute" - P.T. Barnum

If this does get approved is it possible to set the prayer time a few minutes before the official meeting time, so that people can join in or not?

Or, can you just mute yourself and not switch your camera on until the actual meeting starts?

Who’s MAGA?

WRT the prayer, I would definitely 🙄 🙄 as I don’t believe in all that. However, I don’t have a problem with believers and would happily wait quietly whilst they prayed. If they’re happy to respect that I don’t believe, then I’m happy to respect the fact that they do believe.

MAGA... Make America great again

Agree with your sentiments. If I was a non believer I'd sit quietly,wait it out & move on.

A regular meeting? Completely inappropriate unless you work where I do, it's a church consequently it's fine

It is also acceptable to have a short prayer at larger gatherings eg I've experienced them at conferences (not religious conferences) and also things like formal meals starting with grace isn't that unusual eg military functions

But unless it’s linked in the prayer itself, ie ‘thank you Lord for giving us President Trump’, whether she aligns her religious beliefs to her political leaning is totally irrelevant. In her head she might closely link it, but I would imagine politics isn’t going to be brought into her prayers.

I have worked in a church as administrator and we had a prayer at the start and end of every meeting but it was expected. When I started in Girl Guiding in 1970s we opened District meetings with a prayer but over the years it became more of a Thought for the Day. I do remember leading a meeting the day after a major disaster (the kind that makes you go home, hug your kids and be thankful they were not in a certain place at a certain time). I opened the meeting by saying 'I know people have a lot to discuss today, I know there differing opinions but let's keep a sense of proportion after yesterday? It was the most civilised meeting I ever attended.

If it goes ahead you could put a 5 minute talk on benefits of DEI or similar on agenda next time!

Not sure it’s a dig against Americans tbh, more likely the OP is anti-Trump, so is introducing an irrelevant piece of information about her Trump supporting colleague to point out that not only is the lady wanting prayers said, but also she’s a Trump supporter to boot. Prayers aren’t exclusive to Americans. Quite often here in school assemblies, and before formal meals etc, we also will pray, so definitely not something to bash Americans over. I love America btw.

This isn’t really accurate. There are various links between the Church of England and Parliament but nothing that makes the Commons connected in a way that requires prayers. If anything, it exercises oversight over the Church in a number of ways; they are not accountable to it. The Lords contains the Lords Spiritual, ie a number of senior clergy, but that doesn’t render the Lords any sort of religious body as a whole, that would be regarded as non-secular.

Agree. Then on the next agenda get a Wikkan spell for removing negative energy.

‘It's also not legal in the US.’

ok. Here too apparently. I have no idea about laws around this, I doubt most people would.
and as for the US in my experience laws vary vastly from state to state but I’ll bow to your superior knowledge…

Any time I worry about having given up my US citizenship I'm reminded why it was the right decision..! Good luck OP! Would love to know what HR says.

I see the point you're trying to make, but for starters Democrats aren't known for trying to force their religious beliefs on others, so it's unlikely they would do something like this. They might invite the team to join them for prayer prior to the meeting if that was normal for them, but it wouldn't be on the agenda.

Trump literally has the support and involvement of fundamentalist christian groups who want to see America governed according to their religious beliefs and in many evangelical churches support for Trump is preached as though it's integral to their religion. They vote according to their religious beliefs and pray according to their political beliefs, so it really is relevant because there is a strong possibility she will want to pray for/about Trump.

I do not think prayers at the start of meetings is THAT unusual. I'm sure I read that our local council only abolished them recently due to objections. Not sure if a compromise was offered of allowing those who wanted to pray to go into the meeting room 5 minutes earlier, and those who objected could wait outside. If the house of commons can have prayers then I can't see how it can be illegal to have them. Making it illegal to make people participate is more likely the truth of the matter.

Same for me. And I live in the Deep South where I assume most of my colleagues are probably churchgoers. It would be considered highly inappropriate in my workplace.

I am very familiar thanks, having lived in the US for 20 years - are you always so rude? The phrase is usually extrapolated to thinking about the limits of religious influence, with the view that religion should not impinge on daily life or how you are treated. Since this is a workplace, this is an impingement. The right not to have other beliefs imposed on us is vital, but being eroded. I worked for 10 years for an organization which was acquired by a charity set up and run by a religious group. Even they did not insist on prayers in meetings.

religion is between you and your Gods, or ancestors, or whoever it is you venerate.
this is deeply inappropriate. they can pray on their own time, not try and push their religion on others. I'm sure they'd soon object if someone of a different religion wanted to start the meeting with group prayer.

It's completely, completely inappropriate in the workplace and frankly borderline offensive.

If a colleague if yours announced the meeting would be starting with a quick pagan ritual, would you consider that appropriate? Absolutely not. It's also very disrespectful to those of other faiths for whom this might be inappropriate, such as those communities in which men and women do not typically pray together.

Faith is a personal choice and there's simply no reason at all to include it in a work meeting. For one thing, if you want to pray, do it in your free time not the time the company are paying you for?! It's akin to asking to read a chapter of a self help book you like to the group at the start of a meeting!!

Religion should be kept off team meeting agenda’s. No way would I agree to this, massively inappropriate. Keep religion out of workplace meetings

Nah not being unreasonable, it will be interesting how she deals with the pushback, maybe you could stand up after an offer a pagan blessing afterwards :)

In NZ we start and end our meetings with a Karakia i.e. Māori blessing. The idea is its to set the tone of participation and focus us on the subject. There is no appeal to any deity in them but I have noticed alot of people say "ameni" which is Te Reo for "amen" at the end.

I have a few friends that are pagan and they have some lovely prayers, they'd probably make her completely explode

‘The point I am making is that the same request for a prayer could have been made by a Democrat.,

ok, well it wasn’t.