Forsyth County yesterday turned aside a chance to negotiate a settlement in a case that challenges the constitutionality of allowing prayer before board meetings that contains specifically Christian references.
After discussing the issue behind closed doors for about 45 minutes, a majority of commissioners decided that the county should carry on with its defense of its prayer policy. There was no formal vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the county on behalf of several residents in 2007, saying that the county's policy amounts to an endorsement of Christianity. Ministers who give invocations before board meetings frequently close their prayers with references to Jesus.
The ACLU recently sent the county a letter offering to enter into settlement negotiations that would include a county agreement to ban prayers with sectarian references, and pay $60,000 in legal fees to the ACLU.
The ACLU suit makes essentially the same demands, although it doesn't specify an amount for legal fees.
"I am confident we are going to win," said Commissioner Debra Conrad, calling for the county to fight all the way to the Supreme Court, if that is what it takes. "It is the right thing to do. Our process did not violate any aspect of the Constitution."
Commissioner Walter Marshall disagreed with the board majority and said that the discussion hadn't changed any minds on a board almost evenly split.
"Nothing has changed," Marshall said. "The folks that are against it are still against it. The ones who are for it are still for it." Marshall sees the Alliance Defense Fund -- fighting the suit on behalf of the county -- as "trying to change America from a democracy to a theocracy."
Mike Johnson, the ADF attorney handling the county's case, said that the court has told both sides to have final motions in the case ready by March 31.
Because the two sides are not really disputing the facts in the case, they are expected to ask the court for summary judgment -- in other words, to make a ruling on the case without bringing it to trial.
In 2007 the board voted 4-3 on party lines to have the ADF defend the county at no charge. Commissioners Conrad, Richard Linville, Gloria Whisenhunt and Bill Whiteheart made up the GOP majority, while Democratic commissioners Beaufort Bailey, Ted Kaplan and Marshall were opposed. Dave Plyler took Whiteheart's seat on the board this month.
Plyler said yesterday that he thinks that the county should stay in the case at least until the court rules on the motions that would be filed in March. He said that his support also depends on the suit's not costing the county anything, and cited a citizen effort to raise money in support of the county, if that is needed. The ADF isn't charging the county, but has said that it would not pay costs or damages to the winning side should the county lose.
Katherine Parker, the ACLU attorney handling the case, would not comment on the settlement offer last night, but did say that final costs in the case can't be known.
"It is hard to know how long this case will go on," she said. "We are at the very early stages of litigation."
Both sides say they have the law on their side: Yesterday, Johnson was citing a recent Georgia case in which the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found no problem with some sectarian references in governmental prayers. Parker said that settled cases in the 4th Circuit -- of which North Carolina is a part -- back the ACLU's contention that public prayers must be nonsectarian.
Conrad said that the county's effort would aid other communities facing similar challenges from the ACLU.
"We have never discriminated against any religion," she said.
Constance Blackmon, one of two Forsyth County citizens on whose behalf the ACLU sued, said last night that it is "not to the county's advantage to drag this out, and it is not good business."
"Diversity is what people are looking for these days," she said.
■ Wesley Young can be reached at 727-7369 or at wyoung@wsjournal.com.
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