Decision applauded by ACLU

Federal ruling backs argument against sectarian prayer, it says

By: Wesley Young | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: July 30, 2008

A federal-appeals-court opinion in a Virginia case reinforces the argument against sectarian prayer at meetings of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said today.

The opinion, decided on July 23 by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, said that the city of Fredericksburg, Va., did not violate the rights of a minister serving on the city council when it put a policy into place in 2005 that required the prayers before meetings to be nonsectarian.

"We believe this is further authority in support of our arguments," said Katherine Lewis Parker, the ACLU lawyer handling the case that two residents filed against Forsyth County. Parker said that the Fredericksburg case doesn't break new legal ground, but reaffirms the ACLU's position that government speech -- including public prayers at meetings -- must be free of sectarian references.

The ACLU is representing county residents Janet Joyner and Constance Lynn Blackmon in a federal suit that was filed in March 2007 against the county over its public invocations. The suit challenges the constitutionality of the county's practice of allowing clergy to deliver prayers with sectarian content -- references to Jesus, specifically -- when delivering the board's opening invocation.

The ACLU has filed notice of the recent appeals-court ruling with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, where the Forsyth County suit is being fought.

Parker said that the appeals-court ruling cited other cases that support the ACLU's position that invocations at public meetings are a form of government speech.

Michael Johnson of the Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending Forsyth County, said he sees the Fredericksburg case as different from the one involving Forsyth in key details.

Though North Carolina is in the same fourth circuit as Fredericksburg, Johnson said, other circuit courts have reached different rulings on limits to public prayer. "The Supreme Court is going to have to sort that out," he said.

■ Wesley Young can be reached at 727-7369 or at wyoung@wsjournal.com.