Forsyth County files response in lawsuit over sectarian prayer

By: Wesley Young | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: November 30, 2009

Forsyth County is defending its public prayer policy in a new court filing after a magistrate judge issued a preliminary ruling last month that suggested the county's policy was unconstitutional.

Now that the county has filed its response to the preliminary ruling, the plaintiffs who originally sued over sectarian prayers have 10 days to file their response. Some time after that, Chief District Court Judge James A. Beaty Jr. 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.

People who objected to the prayers, many of which include references to Jesus, filed a lawsuit against Forsyth County in March 2007, asking that all prayers of a sectarian nature be banned at board meetings. The plaintiffs were supported by the American Civil Liberties Union.

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 that Sharp 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.