Published: March 13, 2009 12:07 am      

Wozniak: Holy book spending excessive

About $13,000 spent by the state Legislature on religious texts for House and Senate members could be called the wages of salvation.

Others just see it as typical governmental overspending.

Following a story in a Philadelphia newspaper on the outlay, state Sen. John Wozniak, D-Westmont, on Wednesday asked the Senate to cut back. Wozniak wrote to Senate President Pro Tem Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson, urging a change in the rules.

Noting the difficulties being faced by many Pennsylvanians, Wozniak said, “In these trying financial times, I believe it would be prudent.”

The religious texts were bought for the 196 of 203 representatives and the 24 of 25 senators who ordered them.

They’re entitled to one Bible, Torah, Koran or other religious text for each term in office.

The scriptures cost from $30 to $90 each.

Wozniak wants the Senate to provide the texts for first-term senators only.

“There are times when adherence to tradition is simply being stubborn and insensitive to the people we serve,” he said in a release.

“There is difficult work to be done and these controversies and distractions are not needed.”

The Rev. Walter Startzel of Grace Lutheran Church in Stoystown finds Wozniak’s position reasonable, as long as texts are available for all religions and not forced on anyone. He said a cutback to buy scriptures for first-time lawmakers only is fine with him.

“We believe in the Lutheran tradition that God works both through government and church,” he said Thursday. “Yet we don’t believe in the necessity of legislation to force God into the public sphere. God is there already,” Startzel said.

“We don’t have to be God’s protectors,” he said.

Regardless of cost, Americans United for Separation of Church and State questioned the practice of supplying religious texts.

A member of that group, Sandhya Bathija, pointed out that legislators can buy Bibles with their own money.

“Let’s hope the Pennsylvania General Assembly puts an end to this misguided tradition and maybe even begins a new one: Providing copies of the Constitution,” Bathija wrote this month.