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NC board will continue invocations

A unanimous vote by the Transylvania County (North Carolina) Board of Commissioners this week defied a demand letter from the American Civil Liberties Union and approved an invocation policy that will continue its tradition of opening its meetings with prayer. The prayer policy will follow a model provided by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) that has proven constitutionally defensible.



Transylvania County commissioners received the ACLU letter in early April. That letter was one of many sent to local governments across the United States in the last year demanding that public prayers be censored or silenced.

ADF senior legal counsel Mike Johnson says his group applauds the stance of the Transylvania Board, whose decision resists ACLU attempts to squash a right of religious liberty already defended by the Supreme Court as "deeply embedded in our history and tradition."

"This issue is about a practice that goes back to the very first Congress. I mean, the practice of opening a meeting with an invocation is one that goes back more than 230 years. So, just because the ACLU says that they're offended by [the opening prayers] doesn't mean they've gotta stop."

Other North Carolina local governing bodies, in the City of Thomasville and Forsyth County, have also decided to approve and codify a continued prayer policy in response to ACLU letters of demand.