COOLIDGE — Ignoring legal counsel and concerns about a possible lawsuit, a majority of the Coolidge City Council voted Monday to amend a resolution that would allow prayers before council meetings, including a stipulation that they be Christian.

Council members Steve Hudson, Rob Hudelson, Gary Lewis and Tatiana Murrieta all voted in favor of the Christian-only stipulation to the resolution, which was originally written to include ministers from any faith represented within the city limits. Mayor Jon Thompson and Councilman Gilbert Lopez voted against the amended resolution, with Vice Mayor Jacque Henry absent.

Byron Sanders, the pastor at Fairhaven Baptist Church and the city’s public safety chaplain, presented the original ordinance, which reflected court rulings on the subject of prayer. That resolution called for sending out letters to ministers of all faiths around the city and would have allowed a rotating cast of prayer leaders at the beginning of each council meeting.

As each member of the council had a turn to speak, there was no opposition to this version of the resolution. Lewis did stipulate that if somebody from a religion he didn’t support came up to give a prayer, he might leave the room, and he was assured by City Attorney Denis Fitzgibbons that he would be well within his right to do so.

“Under my faith, I wouldn’t sit here and listen to it,” Lewis said. “I would walk away.”

Speaking last was Hudelson, who himself is a preacher. He made clear his views that the United States is a Christian nation.

“I think it’s very important,” Hudelson said. “We just proclaimed Constitution Week. You know what was said at the end of the (Revolutionary) war? A treaty in Paris that said ‘In the name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity.’ You don’t get that from the Quran. You get it from the Bible. You get it from Christianity. That’s our heritage.”