It was, in the words of the old song, “a hot time in the old town that night.”
The town was Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which is the county seat of Forsyth County, where most people, it turns out, like to hear their Board of Commissioners pray before they do the Tarheels’ business.
The American Civil Liberties Union, though, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) don’t think the people’s business is any of God’s business. They filed a
lawsuit in 2007 demanding that a court make the commissioners stop praying at the start of their meetings, since, according to that suit, the board “does not have a policy which discourages or prohibits those whom [the board] has invited to deliver prayers from including references to Jesus Christ, or any other sectarian deity, as part of their prayers.”
A district court
decided in favor of that opinion (as they often do at the early stages), but ADF and its allied attorneys filed an
appeal last month with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. To do so, of course, they needed the permission of the commissioners themselves – and that permission was by no means a given. The case has already gone on for three years, and the prospect (should the case be lost) of paying astronomical attorneys fees for the ACLU and AU was a daunting prospect for the financially strapped county officials.
All of that changed the night of February 22, when the Board of Commissioners met to decide, once and for all, whether to authorize ADF to proceed with the appeal. Long before the meeting began, the 400-seat auditorium where the commissioners meet was standing-room-only. In fact, all five stories of the government building were packed, and the crowds overflowed out onto the rain-soaked plaza out front, where large-screen TVs broadcast the proceedings. News vans lined the streets as church buses pulled up, one after the other, to drop off members wanting to cheer on the commissioners. No one in Forsyth County had ever seen anything like it.
More than a thousand people, all urging the board to keep on taking on the ACLU and its legal cronies – and to keep on opening meetings with prayers in Jesus’ name.
Even more inspiring, in some ways, was a signed contract several pastors presented committing nearly
half a million dollars in cash – raised by churches across the county – for the commissioners to have in escrow, to pay off those ACLU attorney fees, in the event the appellate court should rule against the board.
“This is what America is all about,” says ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson, who spoke at the meeting as lead counsel in the case for the county. “Some of the most eloquent and respectful Christian citizens and community leaders expressed exactly the right sentiments to oppose the ACLU's radical agenda and defend our religious freedom and the liberty to pray in Jesus’ name. Praise be to God!”
When the Board of Commissioners voted 4-3 to authorize the ADF appeal, the building exploded with cheering and applause. Please join me in giving thanks for our allied attorneys who are helping with this crucial case – Barbara Weller, David Gibbs, and Bryce D. Neier – and for all these courageous North Carolina Christians who are standing so boldly together against every effort to undermine religious freedom in their county and across our nation.