Constance Lynn "Connie" Blackmon, the co-plaintiff in the lawsuit to stop Forsyth County commissioners from opening their meetings with sectarian prayer, is a former Southern Baptist who says she got involved in the local fight out of respect for government systems.
Working for the Forsyth County Department of Social Services, she spent her career following the rules. She believed that the county's practice of sectarian prayer was violating the lines in the First Amendment that say "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof."
Blackmon said last week that she never expected that the county would "step out of the whole system. When you step out of your system, you open Pandora's box. You step into territory where's it's going to get out of control, which to me it did. It became far more chaotic than I expected. You lose accountability."
The county has stepped out of bounds, she said, by continuing the fight for sectarian prayer, or prayer to a specific deity, even after County Attorney Davida Martin declined to represent the county in the case and by using the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization, to defend it. She wonders what the reaction would be if the county joined forces with another religious organization, such as a Muslim one.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Beaty Jr. ordered the county to stop its practice of sectarian prayer, ruling that it's unconstitutional. Commissioners are set to vote Feb. 22 on whether they'll appeal Beaty's decision. Whatever happens, Blackmon's name will likely be in law books for years to come.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case against the county on behalf of Blackmon and Janet Joyner, another county resident. Joyner declined to comment for this column.
Blackmon went to Reynolds High School, studied sociology at UNC Greensboro and did graduate work at UNC Chapel Hill. After she retired, she became a Unitarian Universalist, because she found it liberating. But she believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ, she said, and respects all faiths.
And she believes in religious freedom. Her great-grandmother was a Catholic whose family emigrated from Russia in the late 1800s to gain that freedom, Blackmon said.
Without the separation of church and state, Blackmon asked, "How long would it take before one branch of Christianity was trying to tell another branch what to do? The protection of the minority really protects the majority, even though most folks don't see it that way."
Blackmon joined the local chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. After Katherine Parker, a lawyer for the North Carolina ACLU, spoke to her group about sectarian prayer at government meetings, Blackmon said she was ready to join the fight.
The county's prayer practice "has been something that has bothered me," she said. "I didn't feel like this had been right for years ... I just felt like with separation of church and state, it really was not appropriate."
Supporters of the county's position argue that sectarian prayer at the meetings is part of their free expression of religion. But Blackmon said that, "We can choose to go to a church on Sunday, but we can't choose our government."
She's heard critics say she should just leave the commissioners' room during sectarian prayer. "It's my government," Blackmon said. "That's like trying to alienate someone from their government."
Still, Blackmon, who said she doesn't like to see her name in the newspaper, never thought the county would keep fighting for so long. She's sat through grueling depositions that included numerous questions about her objections to the county policy.
In 2007, she received a letter at home from an area woman calling her a "Christ hater" -- and giving her the unsettling realization that the writer knew where she lived.
Blackmon hopes the board of commissioners won't appeal. "I just keep my fingers crossed," she said. And she offers up a silent prayer.
jrailey@wsjournal.com
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