ACLU warned council members not to continue opening meetings with sectarian prayers
Chesapeake, VA – The ACLU of Virginia recently learned that Chesapeake City Council has adopted a new policy requiring that prayers offered at the start of its meetings be nonsectarian. City Council had been opening meetings with sectarian prayers, a direct violation of a recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision holding that formal prayers before legislative bodies must be nonsectarian.
The ACLU wrote to Chesapeake city leaders in August after learning not only that council meetings were being opened with sectarian prayers, but also that two other advocacy organizations, the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Foundation, had submitted misleading legal opinions to council members claiming that sectarian prayers must be allowed.
“There is no more important way to protect religious liberty than to keep the government from using its power to promote one religion over others,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “That is why the first clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing religion, and why the courts have made it clear that formal prayers at legislative meetings must be broad and inclusive rather than focusing on a particular religion.”
In a letter dated August 5, ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg pointed out that in recent cases involving meetings of the Fredericksburg City Council and the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that official prayers are not individual expressions of religious belief but government speech, and that the government is not permitted to show a preference for one religious denomination over others.
Glenberg took issue with the Alliance Defense Fund/Family Foundation statement that “a policy which mandates only nonsectarian prayers would itself likely be unconstitutional.” This, Glenberg wrote, is “demonstrably false” because in 2008 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Fredericksburg City Council’s nonsectarian prayer policy after it was challenged by Councilmember Hashmel Turner. Turner asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, but it refused, allowing the ruling of the court of appeals to stand.
The new Chesapeake prayer policy is borrowed in large part from a policy used for many years by the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors. While agreeing with Chesterfield's requirement that prayers be nonsectarian, the ACLU challenged a provision in the policy that required individuals delivering prayers before meetings to be adherents of a “monotheistic” faith. The Fourth Circuit, however, upheld the policy, rejecting the ACLU's assertion that it discriminates against persons who practice religions that are not monotheistic. The new Chesapeake policy, like Chesterfield's, requires that the persons who deliver prayers at council meetings practice a monotheistic faith.
A copy of the ACLU of Virginia's letter is available online at https://acluva.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/20090805-chesapeakeprayersltr.pdf
A copy of the ADF/FF letter is available online at http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/ChesapeakeLetter.pdf
The new Chesapeake City Council Prayer Policy is available online at https://acluva.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ChesapeakeCouncilPrayerPolicy.pdf
Contact: Kent Willis (office) 804-644-8022
