Battles over prayer waged across nation
WASHINGTON — It happens every week at meetings in towns, counties and cities nationwide. A lawmaker or religious leader leads a prayer before officials begin the business of zoning changes, contract approvals and trash pickup.
But citizens are increasingly taking issue with these prayers, some of which have been in place for decades. At least five lawsuits around the country — in California, Florida, Missouri, New York, and Tennessee — are actively challenging pre-meeting prayers.
Lawyers on both sides say there is a new complaint almost weekly, though they don’t always end up in court. When they do, even courts struggle to draw the line over the acceptable ways to pray.
Lawmakers who defend the prayers cite the nation’s founders and say they’re following a long tradition of prayer before public meetings. They say residents don’t have to participate and having a prayer adds solemnity to meetings and serves as a reminder to do good work.
“It’s a reassuring feeling,” said Lakeland, Fla., Mayor Gow Fields of his city’s prayers, which have led to an ongoing legal clash with an atheist group. The City Commission’s meeting agenda now begins with a disclaimer that any prayer offered before the meeting is the “voluntary offering of a private citizen” and not being endorsed by the commission.
Citizens and groups made uncomfortable by the prayers say they’re fighting an inappropriate mix of religion and politics.
“It makes me feel unwelcome,” said Tommy Coleman, the son of a church pianist and a self-described secular humanist who is challenging pre-meeting prayers in Tennessee’s Hamilton County.
Annie Laurie Gaylor, the co-founder of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, says complaints about the prayers are among the most frequent her organization gets. Her organization sends out letters when it is contacted by citizens, urging lawmakers to discontinue the prayers. Other groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State send out similar letters.
Brett Harvey, a lawyer at the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian group, often helps towns defend their practices. He says liberal groups have made a coordinated attempt to bully local governments into abandoning prayers.
“It’s really kind of a campaign of fear and disinformation,” Harvey said.
Harvey has talked with hundreds of towns about their policies and been involved in about 10 court cases in the past three years. Right now, his advice differs for different parts of the country because the law is in flux.
For example, one court ruling in 2011 says prayers before legislative meetings in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia should be nondenominational or non-sectarian. That means the prayer leader can use general words like “God” and “our creator” but isn’t supposed to use words like “Jesus” “Christ” and “Allah” that are specific to a single religion.
The law is different in Florida, Georgia and Alabama: In 2008 a federal appeals court overseeing those states upheld the practice of Georgia’s Cobb County, which had invited a rotating group of clergy members to give prayers before its meetings. The prayers were predominantly Christian.
