Public comment: Lane County must endorse separation of church and state

Presenter The day after Christian pastors offered prayers at the 2026 ‘State of the County,’ public comments offered criticism and clarification. At Lane County’s Harris Hall Jan. 6, Chris Cirullo:

Chris Cirullo: My name is Chris Cirullo and Commissioner (Pat) Farr, after the ‘State of the County’ address yesterday, your wife asked me a really important question about SNAP benefits. And so I wanted to be sure to address that today and clarify my statement yesterday. 

She wanted to be sure that my statement was not promoting the removal of such benefits. And that was actually not at all the topic that I was addressing. 

So what I said yesterday, for those who didn’t get a chance to hear it, was that we were able to preserve people’s dignity by helping them gain access to work so that they can eat. And I based this on the Old Testament passages in Leviticus, where landowners were commanded not to glean the edges of their fields so that the poor could do that work and provide for themselves. 

My point was twofold. First is a call to responsibility for all who are able to work hard so that they can eat. And second, it is a call to all citizens to be prepared to sacrifice in order to maintain the dignity of people in our county by giving them access to work and not only access to charity. 

Practically, what this could look like is business owners saying instead of giving away money or food, saying, ‘Hey, I’d like to bring you on as an employee, a part-time job, perhaps ten hours a week.’ And that way it can be income to help you begin to pay for food. 

Rather than offering a handout, we offer a hand up. A hand up is not a temporary sustenance, that it’s a loving pathway that helps a person do the work that they were created for so that they can maintain their dignity. 

Work provides dignity because in the beginning, God created Adam and immediately gave him work. His first assignment was to name the animals. God in his love did not exercise his full extent of creative capacity, but he actually invited Adam to join him and partner with bringing human flourishing and order out of chaos. 

In our own inner life, our sense of dignity is deeply tied to meaningful work. When people are not working, something happens in their soul. Many who are on the street may not fully realize it, but part of their anguish comes from not working. When we see health decline in individuals more rapidly after retirement, we know that it’s because they were created to work. 

So my suggestion to the residents of Lane County is to be ready to practice generosity in a way that preserves dignity by creating work opportunities. And my suggestion to our government is to find creative ways for our programs to provide those kinds of dignity-preserving opportunities. Thank you.

Presenter Austin Fölnagy: 

Austin Fölnagy Hello, my name is Austin Fölnagy and I rise today as a Christian to address a concern in the recent ‘State of the County’ discourse, specifically a shift toward a religious focus that risks blurring the lines of our foundational democratic principles. 

Governance is a sacred trust. Governance is not evangelism of our faith. Our duty is to represent a diverse constituency of all faiths and no faith at all, bound not by a shared creed or sacred creed, but by shared laws of Oregon and the United States.

Even within the context of faith, there is a clear directive for this distinction of church and state: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.’ Here in this chamber we are stewards of the budget, infrastructure, and public policy. That requires secular neutrality to remain fair. 

This is not a new debate. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. He understood that once the state begins to favor a specific religious rhetoric, the religious freedoms of every minority is immediately in peril. 

Years ago, I spoke before the Klamath County commissioners when they sought to place a ‘In God We Trust’ sign in the boardroom. My argument, then, is the same as it is now: A government building and government belongs to everyone. When we drape our official actions in religious mantle and rhetoric, we inadvertently tell some citizens they belong and others they do not. 

Let us return our focus to professional administration of our county. Let individuals’ faiths guide our personal morality, and let public governance be guided solely by our laws. As elected officials, we have a responsibility to the public good. Thank you.

Presenter County commissioners are urged to separate church and state, while community members are urged to share with those in need in ways that enhance dignity.