North Carolina’s\u00a0Forsyth County Board of Commissioners was wrong to allow opening prayers that end “in Jesus’ name,” a federal appeals court has ruled.<\/p>\n
In a 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., has ruled in favor of two county residents who complained that they were offended at hearing “in Jesus’ name” in a public prayer.<\/p>\n
Janet Joyner and Constance Blackmon sued after a local religious leader offered a prayer before a December 2007 commission meeting. In that prayer, he thanked God for allowing the birth of His son to forgive us for our sins and closed with\u00a0the standard “in Jesus’\u00a0name,” which\u00a0Christians are\u00a0taught to do\u00a0in the Gospel of John 14:13-14 by Jesus himself.<\/p>\n
The federal\u00a0decision upholds a lower court ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegislative prayer must strive to be nondenominational so long as that is reasonably possible \u2014 it should send a signal of welcome rather than exclusion. It should not reject the tenets of other faiths in favor of just one,\u201d Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in his ruling.<\/p>\n
Judge Paul Niemeyer disagreed, writing in his dissent that Forsyth County allowed believers of any religious faith to give the opening prayer, negating the effect of having a prayer champion only one set of beliefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI respectfully submit that we must maintain a sacred respect of each religion, and when a group of citizens comes together, as does the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, and manifests that sacred respect \u2014 allowing the prayers of each to be spoken in the religion\u2019s own voice \u2014 we must be glad to let it be,\u201d Niemeyer wrote.<\/p>\n
“The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State argued (naturally) that sectarian prayers to any deity violate the First Amendment,” observed the Christian advocacy group Vision to America, which also noted:<\/p>\n
The First Amendment offers no such prohibition since it only restricts \u201cCongress\u201d from making any law \u201crespecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . .\u201d There is no prohibition directed at the states and their counties. In fact, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution at the insistent of the states in order to protect them from federal encroachment. Both the language of the First Amendment and example of the state constitutions support this claim.<\/p>\n
Article XIX of North Carolina\u2019s 1776 Constitution reads, \u201cAll men have a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences.\u201d Article XXXII is specifically Christian in stating the following qualifications for public officers in the state: \u201cNo person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Carolina’s\u00a0Forsyth County Board of Commissioners was wrong to allow opening prayers that end “in Jesus’ name,” a federal appeals court has ruled. In a 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., has ruled in favor of two county residents who complained that they were offended at hearing “in Jesus’…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":1334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[425,344],"class_list":["post-2441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-free-speech","tag-free-speech","tag-public-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n
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