Forsyth County is defending its public prayer policy in a new court filing after a magistrate judge's recommendation last month that suggested the county's policy is unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs, who objected to sectarian prayers, now have 10 days to file their own response to Friday's filing.
Sometime after that, Chief Judge James A. Beaty Jr. of District Court is expected to rule on the case.
Under the county's policy, clergy are invited to give the invocation before board meetings on a first-come-first-served basis. Although the county asks prayer-givers to refrain from trying to convert people or disparage other faiths, the board makes no effort to monitor the content of the prayers.
Members of the clergy who pray frequently mention Jesus in their prayers. Residents who objected to those references filed suit against the county in March 2007, asking that all prayers of a sectarian nature be banned at board meetings.
On Nov. 9, Magistrate Judge Trevor Sharp recommended that the federal district court for the Middle District of North Carolina make a ruling that Forsyth County's prayer practices are unconstitutional.
Sharp said that because most of the prayers delivered at board meetings make Christian references, they show a preference for Christianity by the government. Sharp also rejected the argument put forward by the county that the prayers before meetings are private prayers because they are not formally part of the agenda.
The county's new filing -- an objection to Sharp's recommendation -- asks the court to find that the prayers are private speech because the government doesn't control their content.
The county also argues that Sharp erred by focusing on the Christian content of the majority of prayers, and erred by maintaining that court precedent in the Fourth Circuit of the federal courts -- of which North Carolina is a part -- requires only nonsectarian prayer.
The attorney representing the plaintiffs in court, Katherine Parker of the American Civil Liberties Union, said yesterday that "it is clear in case law that (the prayers are) government speech."
Neither Parker nor Michael Johnson, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund representing the county, was willing to predict when Beaty might make a ruling.
"I expect it will be a timely ruling, but I couldn't guess whether it would be by the end of the year," Johnson said.
wyoung@wsjournal.com
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