Forsyth County is asking a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit over the constitutionality of allowing public invocations that contain sectarian references.
The suit, filed in federal court in March 2007, says that the county wrongfully allows visiting clergy to give invocations that contain phrases such as "in Jesus' name we pray."
By allowing prayers of this kind, the plaintiffs said, the county is sponsoring sectarian prayer and endorsing Christianity in violation of the Constitution.
The plaintiffs, Janet Joyner and Constance Lynn Blackmon, amended their suit last January to take into account a prayer policy adopted by the Forsyth County board after the filing of the original suit.
That policy forbids the board from reviewing or being involved with the content of prayers offered before the county's meetings. The policy says that the public prayers take place in a period "before its meetings for the benefit of the board."
According to the plaintiffs, the board formalized "a policy and practice of sponsoring and allowing sectarian prayer" by not "taking steps to ensure that the prayers were non-sectarian." By putting the prayers off the agenda and before the meeting, plaintiffs contend, the county is carrying out a "failed attempt to transform the legislative prayers into private speech."
The county acknowledges that local clergy are invited to pray and that the prayers sometime contain sectarian references. But in response to the suit, the county denies that the board "ever sponsored any prayer."
The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, while the county's defense is being handled by the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal organization that offered the county its services free of charge. The group wrote the county's prayer policy.
"The First Amendment does not provide any of us with a right to not be offended," said Mike Johnson, the lead Alliance Defense Fund attorney for the county. "There are a lot of things that are said in the public square that I may not agree with but I don't have the right to silence."
In its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, filed last month, the county is arguing both the technical question of whether the plaintiffs have the right to sue, as well as the issue of whether the kinds of prayers the county allows are unconstitutional.
The county's attorneys argue that the plaintiffs can't prove any injury -- that just being offended by a prayer isn't enough.
Beyond that, the county argues that mere sectarian references aren't unconstitutional, in that the plaintiffs can't show that the county has discriminated against non-Christian religions or encouraged clergy to offer sectarian prayers.
In its opposition to the motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs argue that the county is wrong about the right of the citizens to sue, and that precedent is clear about sectarian prayer in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes North Carolina.
"I think the law is very clear in the fourth circuit that sectarian prayer is unconstitutional," said Kathleen Parker, the ACLU lawyer handling the case for the plaintiffs.
Regardless of how the judge rules on the motion to dismiss, both sides predict that the battle will not be over.
Meanwhile, prayer before commissioner meetings continues as before, with some ministers mentioning the name of Jesus in their invocations.
Gloria Whisenhunt, the chairwoman of the board, has delivered invocations when no clergy was present. But Whisenhunt made no sectarian references in her prayer.
That was on purpose, Whisenhunt said. While Whisenhunt believes that private citizens should be able to pray as they wish, she doesn't think that it would be proper for her to pray in a sectarian way in her role as an elected official.
"I understand that part of the law very well," she said.
■ Wesley Young can be reached at 727-7369 or at wyoung@wsjournal.com.
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