Information Alert: Prayer at Meeting Threatened

Victoria Cobb, President
Thursday, July 30, 2009

Last week I told you about several threats to religious liberty that are taking place around the nation. A group calling itself the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” is pursuing one, a suit to prohibit the words “In God We Trust” from being inscribed in the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, DC.

Today we learned that this organization is making threats right here in Virginia!

The Virginian Pilot reported earlier this week that the organization of self-proclaimed “atheists and agnostics” have threatened the city of Chesapeake with legal action should it continue to open its city council meetings in prayer. As usual, they have misrepresented case law, in particular, the Fourth Circuit Court’s infamous Fredericksburg decision.

When we heard about the case this morning, we immediately contacted our friends at the Alliance Defense Fund. ADF is already at work on a letter and model policy for the city council so that they will be able to fight back against the threatened lawsuit. We hope to have the letter and model policy to the city council and mayor today or tomorrow.

A few years ago, The Family Foundation partnered with ADF to send model prayer policies to every local government body in Virginia so that they would be aware of what the courts deem as appropriate prayers at government meetings. There are very specific guidelines for governing bodies to follow in their prayer policies – and none requires so-called “non-sectarian” prayers as suggested by the Freedom From Religion group!

We will keep you posted on this case as we work to inform the Chesapeake City Council and fight this threat to our religious liberty!