S.C. town's prayers provoke lawsuits

GREAT FALLS, S.C. — Jesus no longer has a place in prayers that open Town Council meetings here.

The long-standing practice in this old mill town, about 35 miles north of Columbia, was struck down last year in response to a lawsuit filed by a follower of Wicca, a pagan religion characterized by witchcraft and attention to earthly seasons. A federal judge — and then a federal appeals court — found the Town Council's prayers invoking Christ's name unconstitutional on grounds that they advanced one religion over others.

"I don't like it one bit," Councilman J.C. Broom, a retired furniture salesman who usually gives the invocations, said last week of the court rulings. "I feel like I have a right to pray the way I want to. When I have to pray the way someone tells me how I have to do it, I don't feel as close to the Lord. It becomes a chore. The other way, it was a privilege."

Across Georgia, county commissions and city councils, as well as the state Legislature, routinely begin their public business with prayers invoking Christ's name. Two weeks ago, the Georgia ACLU filed a federal lawsuit similar to the one against Great Falls that seeks to halt Christian prayers before Cobb County Commission meetings. The suit's outcome may set a legal precedent that Georgia governments must follow.

The case again has roiled discussion over the dividing line between church and state. Few issues have sparked as much debate and generated as many diverse opinions. After all, just before the first Congress drafted the First Amendment's religion clauses, it approved the appointment of two legislative chaplains and gave them ample salaries.

"Government-mandated prayers were traditionally the most egregious features of religious establishments and have thus always been viewed suspiciously as first steps on the slippery slope toward new religious establishments," said John Witte Jr., director of Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed all manner of religious texts, symbols and ceremonies to stand in public squares so long as parties are not coerced to support or participate in them, he noted.

"But overtly sectarian legislative prayers — particularly if they are consistently of a certain denominational accent or offered by the same person or small group of persons — cannot pass constitutional muster," Witte said. "Legislatures that maintain an open microphone and allow all manner of religious and nonreligious speakers to offer opening words before their legislative sessions are less constitutionally vulnerable."

Cobb officials insist their invocations — which often conclude with some variation of "in Christ's name we pray" — are constitutional. Commission Chairman Sam Olens, who is Jewish, typically begins a meeting by telling the attendees that if they wish, they may rise for the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance.

Olens said Cobb's prayers were constitutionally permissible because religious leaders of all faiths were welcome. "It's totally random, and no elected official has any part in the process of who's chosen to give the invocation," he said. "We have four rabbis in the county, and all four have given an invocation in the past year. We have one mosque, and it has been represented at least twice in the past year. All the various forms of Christianity regularly come before us."

Olens said he agrees with about "90 percent" of the Christian prayers because they typically ask for guidance in helping commissioners make the right decisions and give thoughts and prayers for U.S. soldiers abroad.

Cobb's case is just one of a number of such challenges percolating in the federal court system nationwide.

This summer, four plaintiffs represented by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the speaker of the state House of Representatives for allowing legislative sessions to begin with prayers that endorse Christianity.

The Indiana House's policy is similar to the one used in Georgia: The House and Senate each invite a "chaplain of the day" to give an invocation to start a business day.

"Over my dead body," Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) said when asked recently if he would consider changing the invocation.

House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) expressed outrage at the ACLU's lawsuit against Cobb County.

"We will not be intimidated or robbed of our consti- tutionally protected right of religious expression by what amounts to a group of out-of-touch, liberal bullies who hijack our nation's judicial system to force their extreme social ideas on the citizens of our state and our country," said Richardson, a former county attorney.

Georgia ACLU staff attorney Gerry Weber said his organization's focus was, for now, solely on Cobb Commission meetings. As for Richardson's remarks, Weber said, "I just hope he remembers his oath to obey the Constitution."

The Christian prayers given before Town Council meetings in Great Falls were challenged in 2001 by Darla Kaye Wynne, a self-described Wiccan high priestess. Wynne, 41, a former topless dancer from Alaska who moved to this tiny South Carolina town seven years ago, said she had been ostracized and her home vandalized because of the stand she took against the Town Council.

A regular at council meetings, Wynne initially stood and bowed her head along with her neighbors. But as references to Jesus continued, Wynne stopped bowing her head. Finally, at a meeting in late 2000, she objected and said the prayers promoted a Christian religion in which she did not believe.

Wynne proposed that the council allow nonsectarian prayers or allow members of all religions a chance to give invocations. This prompted the town to post a message on its Web site urging residents to call their council members and express their opinions about it.

Several Christian ministers drafted resolutions. One expressed support for continued Christian prayers at the meetings and "opposition to allowing alternative prayer to a professed 'witch.' "

At the next council session, with about 100 people — as opposed to the usual half-dozen or so — in attendance, "hallelujahs" and "amens" followed delivery of the Christian prayer to open the meeting, according to court records. The council then rejected Wynne's proposal and decided to carry on as usual. Wynne filed suit that summer.

After U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie in Columbia found the prayers illegal, the town appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the Town Council had "exploited" an opportunity to advance one religion.

The Great Falls Town Council may engage in nonsectarian prayers as a source of strength to believers and a time of quiet reflection for all, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote. "This opportunity does not, however, provide the town council, or any legislative body, license to advance its own religious beliefs in preference to all others, as the town council did here. The First Amendment bars such official preference for one religion, and corresponding official discrimination against all others."

The town appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, the high court declined to hear the case.

In the past, council members typically ended prayers with "in Christ's name we pray." Now they give nonsectarian prayers, and the public agenda includes a disclaimer that says the invocations are "not intended to advance or promote any one religion."

At the council meeting last Monday, members forgot to say the prayer. Maybe their minds were on the $65,490 in legal fees Great Falls owes Wynne's lawyer. This is a back-breaking sum for the one-stoplight town of about 2,300, which has seen its population plummet since the last of its three mills closed in 1984. The fees amount to more than a quarter of the town's annual administrative budget.

Also Monday, Wynne addressed the council and reminded its members that her lawyer would have waived all legal fees if the council had agreed to stop giving Christian prayers and not pursue its appeal to the 4th Circuit. Wynne, who said public enmity toward her is growing, asked the council to encourage town residents to stop putting the blame on her.

"This isn't right," Wynne said. "This could put me in further physical jeopardy."

But none of the town council members looked up or responded as Wynne put copies of her written statement on the desk before them.

After the council meeting had adjourned, Mayor H.C. Starnes wondered aloud whether he might have to go to jail if the town could not pay the legal bills. But when told of the lawsuit against Cobb County, Starnes turned hopeful and suggested President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, might eventually make a difference in whether the high court heard a case involving prayers at government meetings.

For this reason, Starnes said, he had this advice: "Go for it, Cobb County. Go for it."

So much for the ACLU being a "pro bono" org, as they deceitfully style themselves. These are what is known as "reasonable and customary" fees which are awarded winning plaintiffs. Winning defendants don't get such things...defendants always lose.

How I loathe the lawyer parasite class.

When Any Court violates th eclear and unambiguous language of the Constitution a fraud is perpetrated and no-one is bound to obey it."(Constitutional Quotes -constitution.org)
Seems a legal precedent too often ignored. When the American people are once again educated and have been hurt
bad enough by that lawless despotic branch perhaps we will
once again learn to be Americans.And demand of our leaders
the Rule of Law administered by just Judges.

She brought it all upon herself, and then bemoans the backlash.
All she had to do was sit and wait at those meetings until the prayer was over. She had no obligation to participate if she didn't like it. It never ceases to amaze me how these people feel the need to suppress everyone elses beliefs in order to feel comfortable in their own.
She would have done better to ask the council if she could say a few words exhorting the good favor of Gaia after the prayer rather than stomping on the rights of others.
I've got to wonder why on earth this woman went to live in a town which so obviously isn't her type of place. She should've gone to Asheville.

Let's just silence the Christians. After all, our nation was build in Wiccan principles, wasn't it????

She should've gone to Asheville.

But then she would still just be a used up stripper instead of a 'victim' of someone elses prayer.

Nobody's afraid of Pagans,and she can say anything she likes. We just dont like it when she doesnt want to allow us to say what we want.If she doesnt want to hear the parayers she can come in after they are said. If she wants to say her own who cares if she prays to the devil? No town likes to see outsiders come in and make asses of themselves , especially former lap dancers who think they are witches.

It never ceases to amaze me how these people feel the need to suppress everyone elses beliefs in order to feel comfortable in their own.

Suppressing others, especially Christians, IS the exercise of their own belief.

Besides, you can be sure that she is enjoying the backlash, since it can be used to gain the attention of the sympathetic media. Being snubbed at the grocery store is acceptable collateral damage, since the goodwill of neandertaloid rednecks is not just dispensable, but a positive detriment.

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