Clark County (WA) Board of County Councilors Meeting
3 June 2015
Robert Ray (225 words - 1:13)

Thank you, councilors, for the opportunity to provide what I hope to be an inspirational message to start your day.

This is time when the invocator generally makes pleas to the supernatural for permission to act or to grant some special wisdom to the councilors. I am not here to do that.

I am here as a secular citizen to ask that as they consider the agenda today, they do so with the objective of representing all of their citizens concerns.

I am here as a Humanist to ask that as they consider the agenda today, they do so with the empathy and compassion that reside in each of us.

But above all I am here to ask that the councilors, in the spirit of Humanism, to reach within themselves and find the strength to be the best elected officials they can be. I ask that they use their own faculties of reason and wisdom to make their decision today. 

I would also like to ask the citizens of Clark County to remain vigilant and be cognizant of the actions of their elected officials. They are, in fact, your public servants. 

In closing I would like to quote the last line from the 3rd Humanist Manifesto: “The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.”