ACLU warns on prayers at N.C. legislature meetings

By Tom Breen

RALEIGH, N.C.

Bolstered by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision not to intervene in a case involving prayer at government meetings, the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union warned the General Assembly Thursday to curtail religion-specific invocations at its sessions.

"We recommend that you adopt a policy to ensure that the NCGA halts the practice of opening sessions with sectarian invocations," Katy Parker, the group's legal director, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Roy Cooper, whose office represents state government in legal matters.

One prominent North Carolina pastor sees the letter as the first sign of wider consequences from a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand an appeals court's ban on sectarian prayer at meetings of the Forsyth County Board of Commission.

"This is a radical interpretation, an extreme interpretation, of the First Amendment," said the Rev. Mark Creech, director of the Christian Action League.

Parker's letter says the group has received complaints from lawmakers and other citizens about Christian prayers being offered in both the House and Senate. While the Supreme Court has ruled that prayer before legislative bodies is constitutional, Parker's letter says that prayers favoring a specific religion violate the First Amendment's prohibition on government-favored faith.

"The NCGA is still permitted to open its sessions with a prayer, so long as the prayer is nonsectarian," Parker wrote.

In the legislature, each day's floor meetings of the House and Senate start with a prayer, although the two chambers handle it differently.

In the Senate, permanent chaplain the Rev. Peter Milner often invokes Jesus in his opening prayers. In the House, Speaker Thom Tillis hasn't appointed a chaplain, in a departure from previous practice. Instead, individual lawmakers have been invited to lead the prayers. Many representatives conclude their prayers by saying "in Jesus' name," while others have mentioned only God.

A flap arose over House prayers in 2010 when a Baptist minister complained he was asked by a chamber clerk not to refer to Jesus in his prayers. For many years, the House had requested, but not required, that guest chaplains deliver nonsectarian prayers.

Asking lawmakers to say prayers has made the invocations more inconsistent than when the House had its own chaplain, said Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake, who frequently leads prayers using a book of nonsectarian invocations given to her by a minister's wife.

"The chaplain always gave nonsectarian prayers, and the chaplain had his finger on the pulse of what was going on at the General Assembly," she said. "I don't know that when members do it they actually think about the good of the whole. Some members do, and some members just get up and preach."

Calls to House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger were not immediately returned Thursday. Cooper's office plans to share the letter with the leadership of the General Assembly so that lawmakers are aware of the group's concerns, spokeswoman Noelle Talley said.

The letter cites the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month not to hear an appeal of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Forsyth County case. The decision affects not just local governments, but also the General Assembly, Parker wrote.

The ability to offer nonsectarian prayers is of dubious worth, Creech said, to Christians who don't believe in a non-specific deity, but rather in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

"We question whether our prayer is even heard unless it's offered in his name and for his sake," he said.

Associated Press writer Gary Robertson contributed to this report.