Today, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing argument in the case of Joyner v. Forsyth County. A lower court has already determined that the county's practice of opening government meetings with distinctly Christian prayer violates the separation of church and state. That ruling follows nearly 30 years of precedent – dating back to the Supreme Court's Marsh v. Chambers – that allows government invocations only in a non-sectarian context.
In a statement yesterday, the Baptist Joint Committee reiterated the position offered in its friend-of-the-court brief in this case, asking the appeals court to reject the county's efforts to unravel that rule.
The BJC urges the appeals court to uphold the district court opinion and to strictly apply Marsh in this case, only authorizing non-sectarian prayer rather than expanding Marsh “far beyond its limited holding” by allowing sectarian prayer.
“This narrow application of Marsh maintains the integrity of the Establishment Clause while recognizing the unique circumstances surrounding legislative prayer,” the brief states. A misapplication, on the other hand, would “further [blur] the line between church and state in an area of Establishment Clause jurisprudence where the threat of entanglement is already considerable.” The brief states that sectarian prayer, such as practiced under the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners written policy, violates the Establishment Clause by entangling the state with religion and conveying a message of religious endorsement.
Recordings of today's oral arguments should be available early next week.
