TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – In the wake of the cancellation of the annual Florida Leadership Prayer Breakfast, which was abandoned this year because legislators would be in violation of a new lobbying law since the annual event was in part underwritten by lobbyists, legislators who are part of a weekly prayer group decided to hold their own prayer breakfast.

Gathering March 23 on the 22nd floor of the Florida Capitol, legislators, state officials and citizens met to read Scripture and offer prayers for national and state leaders. Legislators from both political parties representing the Christian and Jewish faiths led the hour-long meeting.

“Just because lobbyists can’t pay for our breakfast doesn’t mean that we can’t have a prayer breakfast,” said Rep. John Stargel, R-Lakeland. “So we got together and said we’re going to do this and invite people to come.”

Co-hosting the event with Stargel was Rep. Wilbert “Tee” Holloway, D-Miami Gardens, who led the legislators’ prayer group through Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Life, during last year’s legislative session.

“We were challenged to come to you today and say wait a minute, we believe in prayer and we wanted to continue the leadership prayer effort that we had up there throughout the years,” Holloway said. “And so, we said, let’s do it ourselves. And to that end, we continued our commitment to make sure that prayer is in our capital, that we are a capital that recognizes that we are under God and under God’s guidance.”

Noting that he gets mail at the White House from people who are convinced that “we’re living in apocalyptic times” because of the prevalence of hurricanes, tsunamis, and war, former Florida legislator H. James Towey quipped, “But I do wonder if we’re living in apocalyptic times when I come here and legislators are paying for meals.”

Towey, who was the keynote speaker for the breakfast, has served since 2002 as director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and previously served Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles and Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore. Towey was also legal counsel for Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic society founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India.

Towey commended the legislators for their commitment to prayer, noting that all public officials need to recognize that even “leaders are led,” sometimes by good things, like prayer, and sometimes by bad things, like public opinion polls or special interests.

According to Towey, Southern Baptist Convention president Bobby Welch met March 17 with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office to brief the president on Southern Baptist disaster relief efforts. Welch, who is pastor of First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, asked the president if he could pray for him and Bush readily accepted the offer.

“And they stood up right there and joined hands [in prayer],” Towey said.

Towey said that Jesus’ ministry always pointed to the “primacy of prayer,” noting that with Jesus prayer was not “a matter of last resort, it was a matter of first resort.”

Recalling Satan’s temptation of Jesus, Towey reminded legislators, “Sometimes power can be intoxicating. It’s almost an odorless gas that you’ll experience in your public service.”

Towey illustrated the point by noting that with the birth of his fourth child while still in Tallahassee, friends gave him a few gifts, but when his fifth child was born after he went to work at the White House, they received more than 100 gifts.

“That’s why we have to be careful about flattery and the words that are often insincere. People who are true friends are friends in prayer,” Towey said.

“When you see the clouds of euthanasia forming on the horizon – and they are forming – ‘cause it’s always easier to kill someone than to care for them. And for us to be renewed in prayer in recognition that that person who’s disabled has great power, great dignity because this is Christ in His distressing disguise,” he said.

Recalling his final meeting with Mother Teresa who, when he mentioned his children to her she quickly asked, “Where are the children?

“It’s a great question for public servants to ask. Where are the children and the child-like, the disabled and the elders, and the little ones? … It’s an invitation for us to recognize our service, if it’s to be true, it’s to be in service of the poor and also to be in service of our Lord that we discern through prayer and through fellowship with each other.”

Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, and a member of First Baptist Church of Belleview, concluded the program by singing a cappella The Lord’s Prayer. The gathering was ended with group prayers among legislators and citizens.

Marriage amendment okayed

Meanwhile, on the same day in Tallahassee, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled March 23 that a proposed constitutional marriage amendment can appear on the statewide ballot in 2008 if enough signatures are gathered.

The approval by the high court was a major win for the coalition seeking to put the amendment before voters and may encourage the legislature to put the amendment on the 2006 ballot, Bill Bunkley, legislative consultant for the Florida Baptist Convention, told Florida Baptist Witness.

Constitutional amendments may appear on the ballot by action of the legislature or through a citizens’ initiative.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other like-minded groups had argued that the proposed amendment violated the Florida Constitution because it dealt with more than one subject. The groups also said the ballot summary was misleading.

The amendment would protect traditional marriage by banning both “gay marriage” and Vermont-style civil unions.

Justice R. Fred Lewis, writing for the other six justices, said “the voter is merely being asked to vote on the singular subject of whether the concept of marriage and the rights and obligations traditionally embodied therein should be limited to the union of one man and one woman.”

The Florida Coalition to Protect Marriage (Florida4Marriage.org) failed to collect enough signatures to place the amendment on the ballot this year, although it likely will gather enough signatures prior to the 2008 election. Needing 611,000 signatures, the amendment has 466,000.

“While most initiatives create something new, the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment protects something old. It does not change existing law,” Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver, the author of the proposed amendment who also defended the language before the court, said in a statement. “It preserves the status quo. Very soon the remaining signatures will be certified and the people of Florida will vote to protect traditional marriage. I have no doubt that this marriage amendment will pass by an overwhelming majority. Marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts.”

The proposed amendment states: “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

Nineteen states have passed similar amendments, and another seven are scheduled to vote on them this year. In their effort to legalize “gay marriage,” homosexual activists have targeted states such as Massachusetts, Washington and New Jersey that have no marriage amendment.

[With reporting by Michael Foust of Baptist Press.]