Bacon's Rebellion

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Freedom of Religious Speech

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by

James A. Bacon
in

FREDERICKSBURG, Va., May 23 (Christian Newswire). The Fredericksburg City Council has told the Rev. Hashmeal Turner that he is not allowed to pray in the “Name of Jesus,” at City Council meetings.

There will be a vigil on Tuesday, May 23, at 7:00 P.M., in front of the Fredericksburg, Virginia, City Hall building ( 715 Princess Anne Street).

The Rev. Hashmeal Turner filed an historic federal lawsuit against the City of Fredericksburg arguing that his First Amendment rights are being violated.

This marks the first time a lawsuit of this nature has been filed in federal court.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, comments, “We are gathering in support of the Rev. Hashmeal Turner’s right to pray according to his own faith tradition. No one should be told how they are to pray by civil authorities. The First Amendment affords every American the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience and faith practice. By denying Councilman Turner the right to pray in the ‘Name of Jesus,’ the City of Fredericksburg is crushing the principles of religious freedom and liberty. Both are cornerstones of a free and open society.”

I look forward to a legal victory for free speech as this works its way through the courts.

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Comments

23 responses to “Freedom of Religious Speech”

  1. Shaun Kenney Avatar
    Shaun Kenney

    This has been an ongoing battle, and one that Reverend Turner deserves to win.

    I’ll be there. Anyone else?

  2. Nathan Avatar
    Nathan

    So… can someone be allowed to pray in the name of the god of spring if they felt so moved?

    All hail the deity of the Almighty Wheelbarrow!

    /Or all hail the power of the Almighty Spellchecker…

  3. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    A few words about the case.

    “PFAWF and the law firm of Hunton & Williams are co-counsel to the defendants in this case, the City Council and the Mayor of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The suit was brought by one of the City Council members, Hashmel Turner, who claims that he has the right to offer a sectarian prayer as the Council’s official opening prayer at the beginning of Council meetings, and that the Council’s policy requiring that its opening prayers be non-sectarian violates his constitutional rights. Turner is represented in the case by the Rutherford Institute. His contentions are contrary to Supreme Court and lower federal court precedent, which require that legislative prayer be non-sectarian. The Rutherford Institute has made clear that it is interested in contesting such precedent. The Fredericksburg City Council’s policy is one of inclusion that does not place the government’s imprimatur on any specific religion.”

    http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=20872

  4. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    A non-sectarian prayer is a non sequitur. Unless there is a non-sectarian official, national deity of nationalism for ‘God’ Bless America, One Nation Under ‘God’, etc. Some secular judges may worship such a deity after themselves, but few others do.

    All prayers are sectarian for large ‘sects’ like Christian, Jewish, or Wiccan or smaller sects like the many types of Christian churches.

    Limiting speech is limiting speech. Saying you can NOT pray in the name of Jesus is not inclusion, but exclusion.

    The mishmash of contradictory ‘law’ on the freedom of religion since 1962 comes from the pens of judges, not visionless, cowardly legislators at all levels. There are decisions limiting religion in the public square from Huey, Louey and Dewey (including SCOTUS) and decisions preserving traditional religion (Judeo-Christian) in public by Larry, Moe, and Curly.

    This is a good fight to not have politicians proscribe religious speech.

    If an Aztec priest wants to invoke the Corn God at a meeting (assuming he is invited to give the invocation), that is fine. When he sets up for a human sacrifice, he must be stopped, because he can’t impose his multi-culturalism, his relgious views, on this Nation based on Judeo-Christian culture.

  5. NoVA Scout Avatar
    NoVA Scout

    A couple of important points seem obscured in the posted press release and in some of the following discussion. Until I read fairly far down in the comments (Mr. Wamsley’s comment), I did not realize that the reverend Mr. Turner was a Council member and that the prayer he wished to utter was in the nautre of an official opening prayer. That seems significant. If the prayer we are speaking of is in a context where he wishes to pray aloud in an official capacity or context that would indicate that the Council is adopting a particular religious stance, then all seriously religious people need to be very concerned. I’m not certain why that is so hard to tease out of the press release, but it strikes me as all the difference in the world, from a religious liberty standpoint. The second point is that Mr. Turner has in no way been restricted in his right to pray in any way he sees fit outside that official role (much as I have often shamelessly and immaturely imposed on Providence to assist me in times of need during my public school days). It is of no constitutional significance that any of us pray in public buildings, be they schools, municipal buildings, or the Supreme Court. I have prayed in all of these places with no interference. However, if I were to invoke secular authority to assert a particular religious belief (if, for ludicrous example, I were Chief Justice, or Mayor, or school principal), it would be a very different basket of loaves and fishes.

    Under the factual circumstances as I now understand them, Mr. Turner hasn’t a leg to stand on legally/constitutionally and will lose. Such a loss is a good thing for religion in a free society.

    A final observation for my friend JAB. There are such things as non-sectarian prayers and religious references. Our founding documents are full of them.

  6. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was written in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson.
    JAB seems to have confused this with freedom of religion. The constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” thus providing all citizens freedom for their own religious beliefs.

  7. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    The Virginia Statute was passed in 1786.

    The first amendment provides that Congress – not the Commonwealth or the City of Fredericksburg – will establish an official church or prohibit the free exercise at the Federal level. 12 of 13 states in our Second (present) Constitution (1787) except Virginia had an official state church. I didn’t mention our statute, so I am confused why Wamsley is confused.

    NoVa: What you call ‘non-sectarian’ from our history any observer would call Judeo-Christian. Like the intro that Mr. Jefferson wrote to the Statute of Religious Freedom. No one would ever confuse those prayers with those of any other great religion – Islam, Buddhist, Hindu or various Pagan indigenous religions.

    The argument that calling for Nature’s God and Providence or the Author of our Liberties, the Divine Creator, etc. is just peachy as long as you never say the’J’ word is specious. When you ask someone to give an invocation, and if you tell them what they can’t say (like the words ‘in Jesus’ name), then you are limiting their speech.

  8. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    will NOT establish a church at the Federal level. The states could and did.

  9. NoVA Scout Avatar
    NoVA Scout

    JAB: we can joust on the reasons that the founders avoided direct sectarian references at a not so late hour. But getting back to immediate matter, I would consider it rude to ask an Imam to give an invocation at my garden club and expect him not to say Allah, but I would consider it unlawful for a Muslim councilman to insist that proceedings open with a prayer to Allah. So the fact situation may have a great deal to do with the ultimate legality of this.

  10. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Okay, NoVa, we’re not far off. I don’t think the councilman was insisting that he pray or someone of his choosing and sect pray. We’ll see if that is the case or not.

    Patrick Henry was very clear when he said the US was founded not on religion but on Christianity. But, then, what did he know?

  11. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    The government provides Freedom For Religion.
    An individual has Freedom of Religion.

  12. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    This may read like semantics. But, words have meaning. I don’t think government provides any freedom. Government protects, serves, and preserves freedoms.

  13. NoVA Scout Avatar
    NoVA Scout

    BTW, Jim, (re your 1914 post of last evening) the reason our Aztec Priest cannot open the Fredericksburg City Council meeting with a human sacrifice is not that his religion diverges from Judaeo-Christian beliefs. The limitation is that he would violate Commonwealth laws governing homicide (not sure what degree we’re talking about – might depend on how willing the victim was).

  14. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    NoVa: You make my point precisely. Our laws on homicide were built upon our ideas from our Judeo-Christian culture – and other parts of our legal lineage through Western Civilization.

    That is why different killings that are okay in other cultures are not in ours. No honor killings. No widows jumping on funeral pyres. No female infanticide (except partial birth abortion which the majority opposes and judges maintain).

    Thus, the Aztec priest can not impose his heartfelt values on us and do a human sacrifice.

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    plunge here, cannot seem to login….

    Demanding that your prayers become an official part of your government job is simply ridiculous and arrogant. I’ve never understood how anyone can value prayer so little as to treat it much like a dog marking territory, which is precisely what this is.

    It is simply a lie to say that his religious beliefs are being restricted. He is free to pray at any time he wishes. If he has a prayer emergency, I’m sure the meeting can be temporarily ajdorned so he can run out and pray before he explodes. He can, instead of actually doing his ACTUAL job that he is supposed to be doing, pray to himself throughout the entire meeting. However, for the purposes of his position on the City Council, he’s supposed to be doing his job, not conducting religious exercises.

    No person of the commonwealth of Virginia elected, appointed, or in any other way designated this man as their religious advisor, pope, preist, pastor, or anything else. No one authorized his religious beliefs to become part of the official business of the city council. Religious beliefs are the sole authority of the people and those whom they willingly choose to advise them. To pretend that they are loaned to government servants to perform showboating nonsense on behalf of the people and the people’s business is ludicrous and insulting. We create a government to serve the civil and secular functions of the people precisely because we NEED NO GOVERNMENT AID to conduct our religious business ourselves.

    JAB and others support these sorts of actions based on a knee-jerk reaction to the words “prayer” “not allowed” and so forth without actually thinking through what’s going on. People that actually value religious freedom, as opposed to a pathetic movement to make religion into a means of political theater, detest such attempts. We oppose it because we rebel at the idea that we government officials to carry out prayers in our names that we are perfectly capable of saying ourselves.

    It’s also worth noting that the post-civil war amendments explicitly extends the Bill of Rights to the state. People that claim otherwise are either misinformed or simply lying. Any person can go and read both the amendment itself as well as all the Congressional discussion at the time about the amendment. Yes, originally the Bill of Rights didn’t extend to the states. Now, it does, and the country is better for it.

    As to the exact legal outcome of this case, I have no idea. This man’s acitons are insulting and stupid, but functionally as harmless as wasting time on the public dime reading portions of the telephone book aloud at the start of every meeting. It is the implication and the message that are truly vile, moreso than whatever we decide the legality comes down on (clearly this is a violation of the whole concept of a civil government and religious freedom, but it may not amount to any actionable harm).

  16. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Anon: Thanks for the spleen.

    Which amendments explicitly extend the Bill of Rights to the states?

    The first representative government of English-speaking Peoples was organized and met in a church in Jamestown in 1619. They began their meetings with a prayer.

    Government bodies since the Statute on Religious Freedom was passed in 1786 dis-establishing the official state church have opened meetings, sessions, gatherings with public prayer.

    Perhaps your unique kind of Christianity has found this a vile practice. If so, you have been silent so long. Why?

    To argue that prayer before a public meeting is a violation of civil government and religious freedom after almost 400 years of exercising precisely such prayer is sophistry.

    Perhaps you could do a bit more to live up the Virginia Constitution that calls for ‘Christian’ tolerance of other religions. The practice of praying before a meeting is not new. Telling the praying person what they can NOT say is new and limits free speech.

  17. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    oops, first government in the Western Hemisphere for English-speaking Peoples

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    JAB: I suspect the reference to the Bill of Rights being applicable to the states was meant to refer to the effects of the 14th Amendment. I assume you knew that, though. Nonetheless, some of your comments seem to hint that you think the Bill of Rights is a constraint only on federal action. Pre-14th Amendment, you would have had a point. Not now and not any time within living memory, at least for most of the first ten amendments (there are some exceptions or qualifications that are not relevant in this context).

    Sorry about the tone of Anon’s comment (not that I have any control over it). I don’t see this as having anything to do with “lies.” It has to do with an important constitutional discussion in which there is some disagreement.

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    plunge again:

    “The first representative government of English-speaking Peoples was organized and met in a church in Jamestown in 1619. They began their meetings with a prayer.”

    Irrelevant. That’s not the system we work under. In OUR system, we have a separation of civil government and religious authority, because we recognize that religious beliefs are not the business of the government. The president is not the head of the national church. And just because “that’s the way we’ve always done” is not an argument at all, and you know it.

    “Perhaps you could do a bit more to live up the Virginia Constitution that calls for ‘Christian’ tolerance of other religions. The practice of praying before a meeting is not new. Telling the praying person what they can NOT say is new and limits free speech.”

    You’re simply lying about the situation again. This man isn’t being told that he cannot pray or what to pray, or even when to pray. He is being told that his own prayers are not to be given official space and time in the course of conducting public business.

    Think for a second how ridiculous this is. He is on City Council. That is a position of state authority. But he seems to think that this position somehow gives him a special place for HIS prayers to proclaimed in an official capacity, as if the people, lacking the ability to pray for themselves for what they wish, needed an official representative to do it for them as part of their official business.

    You of course, have no counter-argument to any of this. You can’t defend this practice, because it is so obviously ridiculous. You can only change the subject and go on about bile.

  20. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Which amendments explicitly extend the Bill of Rights to the states?”

    If you really don’t know, how about you go and learn some American legal history before engaging in a discussion where it is a pre-requisite and implying that you are an authority on the subject?

    Of course, the legal issue is a side one for me. It’s the arrogance and lack of respect for religion that’s outrageous.

  21. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Tsk, tsk our Anons. It’s the unofficial start of summer. Drink some lemonade and ‘set’ a spell.

    I taught American Government at the college level. I opened the door for you to explain how when the 1st Amendment says in English “The Congress” it actually means something other than “The Congress”. One of you Anons stated something you couldn’t back up except with more bile.

    It is very un-Virginian to call a difference of opinion ‘lying’. But, I suppose one who writes as Anon and speaks so, should remain Anon.

    I believe (call this lying if you will) that the situation is that a person offering a prayer before a public meeting – as we have done for almost 400 years – was told how he could and could not pray. Specifically, he was told he could not say that he prayed ‘in Jesus name’. If the circumstances are different, I’d sure like to hear about it from someone who can write civilly.

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Tsk, tsk our Anons. It’s the unofficial start of summer. Drink some lemonade and ‘set’ a spell.”

    This coming from a guy with a website chock full of inane conspiracy theories, bizarre graphs, and a death to liberalism message?

    “I taught American Government at the college level.”

    This might come as a surprise to you, but anyone can teach at the “college level.” It’s not a mark of authority. Being a professor of history, or government or law: THAT would be a mark of authority.

    “I opened the door for you to explain how when the 1st Amendment says in English “The Congress” it actually means something other than “The Congress. One of you Anons stated something you couldn’t back up except with more bile.”

    Boy do you love that word. But of course I can back it up, and I already have. The 1st Amendment was extended to cover the states. Furthermore, its long been established precedent that, you can’t dodge the Bill of Rights simply by insisting that the mayor, not an act of Congress, took away your right to free speech. That dog won’t hunt, and it’s never hunt.

    When this nation was first founded, the religious right of the time was its sworn enemy. They spent centuries trying to pass Amendments to make the US a Christian Nation. They failed, and they still fail, because the nation simply isn’t that petty. They’ve had to settle with silly booby prizes like changing the national anthem.

    “It is very un-Virginian to call a difference of opinion ‘lying’. But, I suppose one who writes as Anon and speaks so, should remain Anon.”

    I posted at the very start that I was plunge, and that I was having problems logging in to blogger for some reason (Mac/safari). So of course, you’re wrong about even this.

    What the 14th amendment said and did is not a difference of opinion. But then, you think that geology is just a difference of opinion, so I probably shouldn’t be too surprised.

    “Specifically, he was told he could not say that he prayed ‘in Jesus name’.”

    No, he was told that he could not pray in Jesus’ name as part of the official business of the city council. That’s a radically different situation than the one you have portrayed it as.

  23. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Anon: How is the invocation of the meeting – part of the official business of the city council? Was it always part of the official business or was that a recent change? How so?

    True, I was an Assistant Professor, not a full Professor. Never tried to get tenure. Maybe I would have failed. Just dunno. That doesn’t improve your arguments.

    Sorry you don’t understand the timeline graphics on my web site – http://www.americancivlization.net. I could explain them in a separate thread. No consipiracy theories there, but mere statement of historical trends. Thanks for referring it to more readers again.

    The Bill of Rights are what they say they are. The judicial distortions of them have been temporal in the past and should be in the future. But, maybe not. Justice Frankfurter said, “the Constitution is what I say it is.” That is good enough for Liberals as long as judges are Liberal.

    Who was ‘Religious Right’ in 1776-1787? And later to the mid-1970s? Who were this people?

    The Supreme Court (1920s or was it 30s?) and Democrat Presidents Wilson and Truman said the U.S. was a ‘Christian’ nation. They didn’t mean a church-state. Rather, the culture defined the Nation and made it Christian as an adjective. Just like Patrick Henry said. It’s the same use as in our Virginia Constitution where ‘Christian’ tolerance is called for all and no religious beliefs.

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