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Judge studies prayer policy
He asks to read transcripts as he hears case brought by two Forsyth County residents
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Published: October 15, 2009
GREENSBORO - Judge Trevor Sharp asked for transcripts of prayers given before meetings of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners during a court hearing yesterday on whether the county can legally allow sectarian prayers.
Sharp made no ruling after the 90-minute hearing in U.S. District Court, but he said he would make a decision soon.
Forsyth County residents Janet Joyner and Constance Blackmon are suing the county over a prayer policy that they say favors Christianity.
With the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, they are asking the county for a nonsectarian prayer policy. A nonsectarian policy would forbid references to Jesus or other deities associated with a particular faith.
The county is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, which has sided with other local governments under legal challenge for allowing Christian prayers.
Katherine Parker, an attorney for the ACLU, argued yesterday that both the U.S. Supreme Court and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have said that sectarian prayers are not allowed at board meetings because they violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The 4th Circuit includes North Carolina.
Parker said that Joyner and Blackmon were not only offended by the Christian prayers but also felt "shut out of their own government by its decision not to remain neutral in matters of religion." The two women are Unitarian Universalists.
Defense-fund attorney Michael Johnson said that Forsyth County's prayer policy was a "gold standard" compared with other policies that have come before the courts. The policy allows clergy from any faith to give a public prayer.
Sharp asked Johnson how the county's practice could conform to previous rulings in the 4th Circuit that require prayers to be nonsectarian to pass constitutional muster.
Johnson said that other cases in the 4th Circuit differed in important ways from the one involving Forsyth: in some, he said, the prayer-givers were actual members of the board rather than volunteers from the clergy.
In an interview, Shannon Gilreath, a law professor who teaches a class on freedom of religion at the Wake Forest University School of Law, said that the courts have consistently ruled that "government using prayer at public occasions to exploit particular religious viewpoints is not constitutional."
And that means no sectarian prayer is allowable, said Gilreath, who is not connected to the prayer case.
On the other hand, he said, the law is "in flux" because of a conservative tilt on the Supreme Court in recent years.
In yesterday's court session, Johnson said that Forsyth County's policy is more like one in Georgia recently approved by the 11th Circuit in an appeal. In that case, the court said that sectarian references were not unconstitutional as long as they didn't affiliate the government with a particular faith. He said that Forsyth's policy went "above and beyond" being open to all faiths.
Sharp asked Parker what the plaintiffs wanted the county to do if someone slipped a reference to Jesus into a prayer.
Parker said that even one reference to Jesus would put the county over the constitutional line, and that it was up to the county to enforce the rules. She said that most people would follow the rules or not pray if they felt that they couldn't follow them.
Whatever the outcome, the Forsyth County case will have an effect beyond county government. Angela Carmon, the city attorney for Winston-Salem, said that the city is watching the case to determine its own policy. Currently, while the city tries to invite a diverse selection of prayer-givers, there is no set policy on what they may or may not say.
"It is up to the city council, but whatever happens in the county case will be the basis for whatever advice I may give to the council," Carmon said.
wyoung@wsjournal.com
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