La Grange Town Council to bring back prayer despite federal ruling

LA GRANGE — The La Grange Town Council broke its silence Monday, challenging the boundaries set between church and state in the U.S. Constitution to once again pray aloud together for guidance an inspiration in representing the people of the town.

After 20 months of reserving a pre-meeting invocation to its own personal thoughts, the seven-member board could not longer keep quiet.

The board unanimously voted to side with its religious aspirations over federal judges who have ruled in a number of judgments — the most recent handed down in July — that the use of prayer to open a public meeting violates the Bill of Rights’ First Amendment.

The 140-year tradition of convening with a blessing will return Nov. 7 at 6 p.m. — when the council assembles for its regular session — after a nearly two-year absence for a moment of silence.

The council’s decision is one of the many far reaching effects of the years of ongoing legal debate — which has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court — over whether prayer at governing bodies' meetings should be free of sectarian content, such as references to Jesus or Muhammad, or elements specific to Christianity, Islam or other faiths.

La Grange lawmakers, though, said they are not afraid, opting to pray until somebody formally enters a complaint to stop them, as they say the vote to quiet their beliefs was unsettling.

“I haven’t been comfortable with it,” Councilman Larry Gladney said in starting the discussion to overturn the ban collectively agreed upon by the board March 1, 2010. “I really feel I made a poor decision when I voted against (having a prayer). To me, it is as if I am putting God aside.”

Sounds of silence

The council’s decision to reduce its opening rites to a moment of silence came at the recommendation of Town Manager John Craft after U.S. District Judge James A. Beaty Jr. ruled Jan. 28, 2010, in favor of two Winston-Salem residents — represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — who sued the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners.

It was a prayer made “in the name of Jesus” by a local religious leader before a December 2007 meeting of the Forsyth County board that spawned the lawsuit, Beaty’s ruling and the commissioners to appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit of the Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and now to the Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs in the case alleged the prayer “thanking God for allowing the birth of His son to forgive us for our sins” violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which says the government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or establish a preference for one particular sect or creed.

Additionally, they contended the commissioners’ "first-come, first-serve" policy that allowed clergy to give invocations, with no restriction on how they could pray, was sectarian and should not be allowed.

Beaty and U.S. Appellate judges — in a 2-1 decision on July 29 — backed the couple, adopting the recommendations made by Magistrate Judge P. Trevor Sharp, of the court’s Middle District of North Carolina, who said mentions of “Jesus,” “Jesus Christ” and “Christ” singled out praise for a specific deity.

The board, forced to stop pre-meeting prayers, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case remains open.

Tired of waiting

The council, as a whole, expressed no ill will towards Craft for recommending the switch, as they said he was just doing his job to protect the board against the ACLU or anyone else who may file a lawsuit against them.

Instead, Mayor Woodard Gurley said they “jumped the gun” when Town Attorney George Jenkins Jr. said he had concerns of the council prevailing against any charges made against the board as, he said, “Catholics, Jews, Muslims, or atheists really are excluded” from its prayers.

Jenkins, who told the La Grange Town Council Sharp’s interpretations were bound by judgments by the U.S. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, called Craft’s suggestion an “excellent compromise,” as the council’s prayers, he observed, have primarily been for the Protestant faith.

The council wanted to wait to revert to praying aloud after seeing whether the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of an appeal entered by The Alliance Defense Fund — the public interest law firm that is leading Forsyth County’s defense.

But upon seeing the Lenoir County Board of County Commissioners, Kinston City Council, East Carolina Council and even the U.S. Congress still believing in the power of prayer, the board reinstated their invocation.

“Sometimes you have to stop and do different,” said Councilman David Holmes. “But this is not one of those things.”

Information from the Winston-Salem Journal was used in this report. Wesley Brown can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wbrown@freedomenc.com.