Forsyth prayer case headed to the Supreme Court | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Likely to impact Beaufort County either way it is decided

    We recently reported on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against the Forsyth County commissioners prayer policy. You can review that article, which contains a link to the actual decisions by clicking here.

    The Forsyth County Commission is scheduled to meet today (8-8-11) to decide whether to appeal the decision to the U. S. Supreme Court. Six of the seven commissioners have indicated they will vote to do so.

    The Winston Salem Journal has an excellent summary of the legal issues in the case that can be read by clicking here.

    What is interesting about the Forsyth case is its applicability to Beaufort County. On the face of it one might conclude that the Washington City Council is in good shape if the U. S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the case (upholding the Fourth Circuit) or hears the case and basically affirms the "non-sectarian" aspect of the prayers. Non-sectarian prayers invoke the blessing of the Supreme Being on the business at hand but do not advocate a particular religious belief. One of our old law professors summed up "non-sectarian" this way: "A prayer is non-sectarian if most people hearing the prayer can say 'amen' after it's over."

    That is the kind of prayer typically delivered at a Washington City Council meeting, even though it is said by a member of the council, and even sometimes by a minister on the council. It is usually still non-sectarian as we have observed.

    The County Commission and the Chocowinity Town Board are different. Those boards have a member invoke the invocation and as often as not the content of the prayer is pretty sectarian

    Those two circumstances could be viewed to be on either side of the Forsyth approach. There it is not a member of the governing body who delivers the prayer but rather any local minister who volunteers to be added to a list to be chosen in rotation or random to deliver the prayer. The County does not, via its policy, seek to dictate the content of the prayer.

    The Fourth Circuit made it explicit that they were not outlawing non-sectarian prayers. So the issue before the Supreme Court will likely center on that point. We'll keep you informed as the issue develops.

    Commentary

    Why are we fighting this battle? We cover both the Washington City Council and the Beaufort County Commission. Frankly, we can't tell that the content of the prayer makes much difference in the way either board conducts the public's business.

    Now what it does do is allow some who deliver the invocation to communicate their personal religious beliefs, with which incidentally we agree with. But it does not matter whether we agree with the theology of the prayer. And it should not matter what the theology of the board member delivering the invocation is. A public meeting, which often appears to on occasions rather un-Christ-like, is not the proper forum for advocacy of a particular religious belief.

    We say that simply because we don't trust the government or the people who run government to decide what religious beliefs should be promoted and which ones should not. We would much rather see these government officials set a Christ-like example in their actions than to try to show the caliber of their professed beliefs in the content of invoking the Almighty's guidance and blessing on the meeting.

    Some of these prayers remind us of the Pharisees that Jesus used as an illustration to teach his disciples to pray when he exhorted them to go into a closet and pray to God in secret (Matthew 6:6). No, on second thought they already go into secret session far too much. Back to the drawing board. Perhaps we should just let the Supreme Court sort all this out.