After a number of scheduling delays, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is ready to hear arguments on whether Forsyth County can allow prayers that make reference to Jesus before meetings.
It's been more than a year since U.S. District Court Judge James A. Beaty Jr. issued an injunction that stopped the county from allowing references to Christianity or any other religion during the invocations that were once given before the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners.
A three-judge panel will hear oral arguments in the county's appeal Thursday in Richmond, Va.
"It will go into precedent and legal arguments, but it is such an interesting issue that I would think that people in the audience will find it interesting," said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Katherine Parker, who will be arguing the case against sectarian prayer.
Three citizens sued the county in March 2007 over what had been a routine practice up until then: a member of the clergy on invitation from the board would step up to a microphone and pray for the board.
The prayers usually made reference to Jesus or included other specific Christian themes. Constance Blackmon, one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the county, said in a 2009 deposition that when the board chairman asked the audience to stand for a prayer she felt pressured into conforming.
Blackmon and the other plaintiff, Janet Joyner, were backed in their suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Meanwhile, the county enlisted the help of a conservative Christian group, the Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF helped the county craft an ordinance that would regulate the invocations by opening them to all clergy on a first-come, first-served basis, with no oversight on what the clergy members could say.
The board was badly split over the issue and entered into the agreement with the ADF by a 4-3 margin, with Republicans prevailing on a party-line vote.
The election of moderate Republican Dave Plyler in 2008 didn't change the party lineup on the board, but it did make it harder for sectarian prayer advocates to get board support for an appeal.
To help convince Plyler to vote for an appeal, a local group — the North Carolina Partnership for Religious Liberty — promised to pay the county's legal bills up to $300,000.
Mike Johnson, the ADF attorney for the county, called the case one with "nationwide implications."
Johnson said that no appellate court has mandated only non-sectarian invocations.
But Parker has argued that Fourth Circuit precedent is clear in banning sectarian prayers, and that in practice the prayers before meetings of the Forsyth County board were overwhelmingly Christian.
The attorneys are likely to be making the same arguments in Richmond as they have made previously, the attorneys said.
Blackmon said she hopes to attend the hearing in Richmond, but county commissioners aren't likely to be there. The arguments come in the middle of county budget deliberations.
"This will be the first court appearance I have missed," said Commissioner Debra Conrad, who backs allowing sectarian prayer. "It is falling right when we work on the budget."
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