Fourth Circuit: N.C. County Board's Prayer Policy Doesn’t Have a Prayer

CNSNews ^ | 8/2/11 | Pete Winn

[CNSNews]

(CNSNews.com) – The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., has ruled that a county board in North Carolina may not open its meetings with clergy-led prayer.

The case involves an ACLU challenge to a policy adopted by the Forsyth County (N.C.) Board of Commissioners allowing local clergymen to open up meetings with prayer.

In a 2-to-1 decision, a three-judge panel last Friday upheld a lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge James Beaty that the prayer policy was unconstitutional because the majority of prayers offered were from Christian clergymen.

[July4]

We are a CHRISTIAN nation, whether or not judges, legislators, or educators acknowledge the fact. We TOLERATE other religious beliefs; we are not required to accept them. There is a critical difference.

If our nation or the world, for that matter, rejects this premise, it’s OK. We have the Book, and we know how this story ends.

[PDGearhead]

They should go ahead and say their prayers anyway. Don’t allow these nuts to tell them not to pray.

Let’s see what they do. Throw everyone in jail?

[Melchior]

J. Harvie Wilkenson, who voted in the majority, is a renowned conservative judge. His opinion was, I believe, the sort of opinion one could expect of a liberal Episcopalian who questions both the virgin birth and the resurrection. Why is it that when judges are involved in religious issues so many lose their way in the maze of political correctness?

[StonyBurk]

There seems NO Constitutional argument behind these Court decisions. We have a first Amendment which has remained unchanged since adopted by Congress in Sept.1789 And we have metaphysical refinements (which both Thomas Jefferson and Justice Joseph Story said were out of place in understanding Law/or the Constitution) Neither the Lemon test which attempted to justify the Fraud perpetrated by the Everson v. Board of Education ,1947 to current events of of the 1970’s —Nor the so called “endorsement test-dreamed up by Sandra Day O’Connor which attempted to achieve what Lemmon could NOT. Convenient arguments both -but invalid for we have a written Constitution ,as such its meaning does not alter.(South Carolina v. the United States Joseph Brewer for the Court ,1905)