No one should EVER be denied the right to pray or use Jesus' name in public or anywhere!
by: Drew Zahn / WND / October 28, 2011
But the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are standing by their victory in a U.S. circuit court decision that states even "a solitary reference to Jesus Christ" in invocations before the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners' meetings could do "violence to the pluralistic and inclusive values that are a defining feature of American public life."
Furthermore, wrote Judge James Harvie Wilkinson III in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals majority opinion, legislative invocations offered in Jesus' name are inherently "sectarian" and thus should be censored lest they make some attendees feel "uncomfortable, unwelcome and unwilling to participate in … public affairs."
What is Christianity's role in the nation? Find out in "Christianity and the American Commonwealth"
But the board disagrees, and with the help of the Alliance Defense Fund is asking the Supreme Court to trump Wilkinson's ruling.
"America's founders opened public meetings with prayer; this county simply wants to allow its citizens to do the same," said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman in a statement. "We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will want to review this case because of the long history in America of offering prayers before public meetings. Public officials shouldn't be coerced into censoring the prayers of those invited to offer them just because secularist groups don't like people praying according to their own conscience."
For years, the board has extended an open invitation to religious leaders from the community to volunteer a prayer before its twice-monthly meetings, asking only that the invocations "not be exploited as an effort to convert others … nor to disparage any faith or belief."
But a pair of local citizens, Janet Joyner and Constance Lynn Blackmon, attended the meetings regularly and were bothered by the frequent mentions of Jesus in the prayers. After the pair sat through yet another Christian prayer, this one including references to "the Cross of Calvary" and the "Virgin Birth," they sued the board of commissioners with help from the ACLU and Americans United lawyers.
After a pair of appeals, Judge Wilkinson handed down a majority opinion Americans United called "a major win for church-state separation."
"While legislative prayer has the capacity to solemnize the weighty task of governance … it also has the potential to generate sectarian strife," Wilkinson reasoned. "Such conflict rends communities and does violence to the pluralistic and inclusive values that are a defining feature of American public life."
"It is not enough to contend, as the dissent does, that the policy was 'neutral and proactively inclusive,'" the ruling continues. "Take-all-comers policies that do not discourage sectarian prayer will inevitably favor the majoritarian faith in the community at the expense of religious minorities living therein. This effect creates real burdens on citizens ...
Read more: Jesus' name ruled 'unconstitutional' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=361461#ixzz1cArVvOKF
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