Prayer ruling faces appeal

Verdict could affect County Council

BY ASHLEY FLETCHER, The Island Packet
Published Sunday, October 19th, 2003

Prayer at public meetings cannot include words that endorse a specific religion, such as "Christ" or "Jesus," a federal judge has told a South Carolina town council.

The ruling, now under appeal, could apply to all South Carolina governments if it is upheld.

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But Beaufort County Council Chairman Weston Newton said the council does not endorse any one religion in its invocations. Instead, it promotes religious diversity through its tradition of inviting leaders of different denominations and faiths to pray before each meeting.

Newton called the practice "ecumenically neutral," and said the county staff attorney has said the August court ruling is not yet a concern for Beaufort County.

But council minutes show that since January, all ministers invited to give an invocation at regular county council meetings have been from Christian churches.

In response to the judge's ruling, county staff attorney Kelly Golden sent a memo Sept. 16 to council members and county boards advising them of the ruling. But, Golden said the memo was not meant as advice to change any policy.

"It was my gentle way of urging people to be more considerate of diversity," Golden said.

In the federal court case, Darla Kaye Wynne, a Wiccan high priestess, sued the town of Great Falls for repeatedly opening council meetings with a prayer that included the word "Christ." Wynne said the prayers violated the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from endorsing any one religion.

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie agreed, writing that neither the town council nor any person giving an invocation at public meetings should "(invoke) the name of a specific deity associated with any one specific faith or belief."

Prayers can include "God," Currie said in the ruling.

Newton said the council has no policy limiting what religious leaders say in prayers, and he sees no need for one. Since he was elected in 1999, no one has objected to the tradition of inviting different religious leaders to pray, he said.

County staff members select religious leaders at random from a list of all churches in the county, said Pete Nardi, county spokesman.

That list includes the county's Jewish temples, and their rabbis have given the invocation at past meetings. Most recently, the Congregation Beth Yam's Rabbi Mark Covitz led the prayer at this year's groundbreaking ceremony for the Hilton Head Island airport control tower.

The town of Great Falls has appealed Currie's ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster joined the town in that appeal this past week.

"The constitutional issues before the court in this case are of great importance both to the General Assembly ... as well as to the hundreds of political subdivisions in this state," McMaster wrote in a motion filed last Wednesday.

"The state intends in its brief to urge the court to conclude that the actions and policies of the Great Falls council are constitutional and that references to Jesus Christ in a non-proselytizing invocation are not prohibited by the First Amendment," McMaster said in a news release.

Currie said her ruling does not directly apply to any government except Great Falls at this point and would not apply at all if overturned.

But if the ruling is affirmed at the appellate level, it could become precedent in similar cases for the five states in the Fourth Circuit: South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.

If the appeals court does uphold the ruling, it would be "dicey" for a government to ignore it, said Eldon Wedlock, professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

"That means a suit filed by someone down there would basically be a slam dunk," Wedlock said. "And do you want to waste taxpayer money litigating a suit you know you're going to lose?"

Newton said if Currie's ruling is upheld by the appeals court, "it may cause us to revisit -- and all governments to revisit" prayer policies.

Currie said her ruling was based largely on the 1983 case Marsh vs. Chambers, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of legislative prayer as long as it was "nonsectarian," or did not endorse a specific religion.

Contact Ashley Fletcher at 706-8144 or afletcher@islandpacket.com.