A group trying to get the county to appeal a court ruling against sectarian prayer pledged $100,000 to the effort today, in addition to the $55,000 the group raised last year.
At a press conference this afternoon, Steve Corts, the chairman of the N.C. Partnership for Religious Liberty, said that at least 29 donors had stepped forward in recent days to pledge money for an appeal.
A federal judge ruled last month that the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners' prayer policy was unconstitutional because, under it, the great majority of prayers were Christian prayers. The court, siding with the American Civil Liberties Union and citizens who sued the county, said that the county should either drop invocations before meetings or require non-sectarian prayers.
Under the county policy, clergy were invited to pray on a first-come, first-served basis, and were not told what they could or could not say.
A national group called the Alliance Defense Fund is backing the county's defense financially, but will not pay judgments awarded to the ACLU should the county ultimately lose. That's where the N.C. Partnership has stepped in with its pledge.
The question before the county is whether to appeal, and one commissioner — Dave Plyler, the board chairman — is the swing vote that will decide the matter. Plyler has insisted that to get his vote, citizens wanting the county to appeal must sign a document promising that the suit won't cost taxpayers any money.
That promise didn't come today. Corts said he could not make a "blanket promise," but that he nonetheless hopes to convince Plyler that the amount the group has raised should see the county through the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the next step for the county should it decide to appeal.
A group of pastors backing the appeal came to the news conference to show their support. They included whites, blacks and Hispanics, and Corts pointed to that as a sign his group has wide support.
Corts said that while his group has only Christians involved so far, the group's efforts are meant for all faiths. And he said the group could raise even more money to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if that is needed.
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