Margaret Downey, president of the atheist Free Thought Society, came to last night's Coatesville council meeting hoping to get an apology from council President Patsy for her spontaneous call for prayer during the last council meeting.

Downey left empty handed.

"I'm not going to apologize," said Ray, who runs a home ministry, "God made me what I am and I wouldn't be here but for him."

Downey said she was speaking on behalf of an unnamed Coatesville resident who complained to the Free Thought Society regarding Ray and Council Member Kurt Schenk's actions at the Feb. 12 council meeting. It was toward the end of the meeting that Ray called for everyone to stand and link hands in prayer. Schenk, a pastor, then led the prayer.

Downey last night requested council adopt a apology that would ban prayer at council meeting. Downey remained seated during the invocation at the start of last night's council meeting.

"I'm here to see if you apologize and also to see what your intentions are on enacting a now prayer policy," Downey said.

Downey, in a Feb. 15 letter to Ray, charged that it was not her responsibility to provide spiritual guidance or religious activities to anyone in the council. "It is presumptuous to assume that everyone in the room would be in favor of participating in a prayer. Asking everyone to stand, hold hands and pray was rude and highly inappropriate for a government official," Downey said in her letter.

Linda Lavender, of South Third Avenue, Coatesville, followed Downey to the microphone and asked council not to apology and not to change its policy regarding opening the meeting with a public prayer.

"This is Coatesville and Coatesville needs prayer," she said. "I'm a Christian struggling to do the very best I can."

Schenk said he never intended to offend anyone. "But I will tell everyone I will die before I deny my Savior Jesus Christ."

The Free Thought Society of Greater Philadelphia lost on appeal a legal battle to have a plaque commemorating the Ten Commandments removed from an outside wall of the Chester County Courthouse.