Salisbury, NC – This year the efforts to destroy tradition and eliminate prayer in America continue with a new battle front in Salisbury, a mid-size town located on a major interstate near the center of the state. County officials of this historical town-- home of a large Veterans Administration facility that was very active after World War II—voted last September to continue a battle to retain their traditional invocational prayer at County Commission meetings by taking their case to the United States Supreme Court. The case will not only be expensive but will promise to be a difficult one.

         This battle over prayer is only one of a larger campaign to eliminate public prayer and observance of traditional religious holidays associated with the history of an America which was formed as a Christian nation seeking its freedom to pray and follow its newly Protestant identity in the new land having fled oppression of theocratic society in mainly Europe. Participants in the current battle quoting “separation of church and state” seem to show very little understanding of differences between a government FUNDED AND RUN BY A RELIGIOUS GROUP—a theocracy, like Iran-- and a government which maintains a modest loyalty to a general majority religion through simple prayers and allowing of religious observances. The campaign against prayer and religious symbolism is taking the fight to an extreme level of banning of all religious connection when in fact, the U. S. Constitution’s general tenet is that the government not interfere in any religious practices in America—NOT THAT THEY ARE REQUIRED TO BAN THEM IN ANY FORM.

       The national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief and the ACLU of North Carolina filed a lawsuit challenging the ROWAN COUNTY commissioners’ “coercive prayer practice” in March 2013 on behalf of three Rowan residents. A local court ruled in favor of the ACLU and against the commissioners’ prayer practice.

       After several rounds of public comment over more than a year--with hundreds of citizens speaking up in favor of retaining the traditional prayer, the small Rowan County Commission Board made the bold decision to fight to the U.. S. Supreme Court. Lawyers for the county stated that “those prayers ‘neither threaten damnation nor preach conversion,’ and point to a tradition of legislative prayers going back to a time prior to the founding of the republic,” according to the Observer.

       A panel of three judges in September 2016 reversed the ruling that Rowan County Commissioners violated the Constitution when they held prayers before public meetings that were specific to one religion. This again legitimized the county’s prayer practice. Then the ACLU appealed the ruling and in October 2016, the 4th circuit appeals court was asked by the ACLU to reconsider the lower court’s ruling in favor of the county; that court ruled 10-5 that the practice “violated the Constitution when they opened public meetings BY COERCING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN PRAYERS that overwhelmingly advanced beliefs specific to one religion.”

       The judges of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals need to re-think their understanding of the word “COERCE” when stating that the Rowan County Commissioners—by instructing meeting participants to stand and join in a prayer—were “COERCING” citizens to join in a prayer. IN THE HISTORY PRE-DATING AMERICA, THE REALITY OF “COERCIVE RELIGION” INVOLVED EXECUTIONS AND BURNINGS AT THE STAKE BY GOVERNMENT DECREE. HOW IS THE ROWAN COUNTY COMMISSION “COERCING CITIZENS” BY ASKING ATTENDEES TO STAND FOR A PRAYER?