It took one of the councilmembers, Clive Bone, to finally try to put a stop to it. First, a compromise was offered — the Council could pray *before* meetings — but it was rejected. Then it went to the courts.

Clive Bone near the council chamber (Mark Passmore/APEX)

The good news: It worked! No more prayers during meetings. (Thanks, National Secular Society!) You can read the judge’s ruling here (PDF).

NSS lawyers argued that council members who were not religious were being “indirectly discriminated against” and that their human rights were being breached.

…

The NSS, which said prayers had no place in “a secular environment concerned with civic business”, argued the “inappropriate” ritual breached articles 9 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect an individual’s right to freedom of conscience and not to face discrimination.

The bittersweet news: The judge ruled that prayer should stop not because it was a violation of anyone’s rights, but because of an arcane law that simply didn’t give the council the power to hold such prayers.

Mr Justice Ouseley said: “A local authority has no power under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, or otherwise, to hold prayers as part of a formal local authority meeting, or to summon councillors to such a meeting at which prayers are on the agenda.”

He told the court: “There is no specific power to say prayers or to have any period of quiet reflection as part of the business of the council.”

Referring to Bideford, he said: “The council has on two occasions by a majority voted to retain public prayers at its full meetings.

“But that does not give it power to do what it has no power to do.”

You have to wonder what would’ve happened if the 1972 law had given them that power. Would it have been ok then? Precedence doesn’t always have to be follower. (Says me, the non-lawyer.)

The NSS is pleased with the outcome, though:

… Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society said:

“Acts of worship in council meetings are key to the separation of religion from politics, so we’re very pleased with the judgement, and the clear secular message it sends — particularly the statement made about the 1972 Act…

“We believe that council meetings should be conducted in a manner equally welcoming to all councillors, regardless of their religious beliefs, or indeed, lack of belief.

“The NSS is not seeking to deprive those who wish to pray the opportunity to do so; indeed, we fight to retain freedom of religion and belief. The judgement clearly states that religious freedoms are not hindered, as councillors who wish to do so are free to say prayers before council meetings.

As reader Jon points out in an email, the prayers used to be useless. Now, they’re useless and unlawful.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery agreed with them, saying that the graduation prayers would “violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.”

Unfortunately, the district appealed and the 5^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took their side. They said since it was a student-led prayer and not a school-sponsored prayer, it was ok. Corwyn Schultz ended up missing his own graduation ceremony.

Anyway, that was last year. Why bring it up now?

Two reasons.

First, Newt Gingrich has specifically called out Judge Biery in several stump speeches, calling for him to be fired because of his ruling against the school district:

“If you read his ruling, it is so outrageously dictatorial and anti-religious that he [Biery] clearly does not understand America,” Gingrich said. “We don’t need judges who don’t understand America…We need to reset the judiciary, explain to them the limits of the American Constitution and prove to them that judges appointed for life cannot be dictators and they cannot threaten our children with jail for saying the word ‘prayer.’”

Second, Americans United decided to file an “amended complaint” back in October. Basically, in the months since filing the original lawsuit, they found lots of evidence that points to the school having a hand in promoting Christianity.

Our motion — which includes photographs taken from inside the school and videoclips from its graduations and football games — details how both sets of events have consistently featured Christian prayers and how the school district has tightly controlled these events’ programming and contents.

Instead of going to trial again, the two sides have settled out of court.

Judge Biery wrote the opinion (PDF) to settle the case once and for all. It’s three pages and you should all read it.

Even better is the short personal statement made by Biery at the end of the opinion:

During the course of this litigation, many have played a part:

To the United States Marshal Service and local police who have provided heightened security: Thank you.

To those Christians who have venomously and vomitously cursed the Court family and threatened bodily harm and assassination: In His name, I forgive you.

To those who have prayed for my death: Your prayers will someday be answered, as inevitably trumps probability.

To those in executive and legislative branches of government who have demagogued this case for their own political goals: You should be ashamed of yourselves.

To the lawyers who have advocated professionally and respectfully for their clients respective positions: Bless you.”

Brilliant.

(Thanks to Tom for the link!)

Back in 2007, Ms. Walden’s employer, C0mputer Sciences Corporation, (CSC) held a contract with the CDC under which it provided counseling services to CDC employees. The issue arose when a CDC employee who was in a long-term same-sex relationship came to Ms. Walden for counseling. During the intake session, the employee (referred to as “Jane Doe” in the opinion) told Ms. Walden about serious and emotionally disturbing issues in her relationship. In response, Ms. Walden told her that her “personal values” prevented her from effectively counseling Ms. Doe, and provided a referral. During that intake session, Ms. Walden never mentioned the source of those personal values, her Christian faith.

Ms. Doe then filed a complaint to Ms. Walden’s superiors, saying that she felt “judged and condemned” by what Ms. Walden had said.  Her immediate supervisor did not take issue with the referral itself. (And neither do I — I’d rather not have LGBT people in a patient/counselor relationship with someone like that).

The program supervisor, Doug Shelton, discussed the incident with Ms. Walden and told her that the implicit judgment in telling a patient that her “personal values” prevented her from counseling the patient was not acceptable.

Ms. Walden rejected suggestions that she give potential clients who are in same-sex relationships some other reason for her referral. At the trial court level, she insisted that

it seemed unfair that [Ms. Doe] was able to talk aboutbeing gay and lesbian, and yet I couldn’t freely talk about me and my religious beliefs, or being Christian . . . . To me, it’s about honesty.  If she can be honest – I mean, I should be honest about why I’m transferring her.

The court held that

undisputed facts inthe record show that Dr. Chosewood and Ms. Zerbe asked for Ms. Walden’s removal from the contract because of how she handled Ms. Doe’s referral and because they believed Ms. Walden would not alter her behavior in similar circumstances in the future, not because of her religious views or her need to refer clients for religious reasons.

Her superiors did not burden her religious exercise by instructing her not to tell patients that she disapproved of their sexuality. Ms. Walden never claimed that her religious beliefs required her to be honest with her patients about her values. (Which is ironic, since “don’t lie” is actually in there). Her sincere religious belief that she would be condoning same-sex relationships by counseling people who were involved in them was not burdened.

It appears that absolutely no one told her she had to counsel people in same-sex relationships, nor does it appear that she was penalized in any way for deciding to refer those patients to another counselor. I would give my opinion here about why it’s so reprehensible for a counselor to express judgment like that when someone comes to her in need, but Dr. Casey Chosewood, CDC’s Project Officer for Occupational Health and Preventive Services, says it beautifully:

There again, I feel like that statement has some — has some bias in it, it has some judgmental tone in it.  There are many people who believe that homosexuality is like eye color or color of skin, you know.  There’s good science that supports that, as well.  I would not be happy with her saying something like, you know, “My personal belief doesn’t allow me to see someone of your color.”  To me, that’s — it’s just not appropriate in that very vulnerable setting when patients are coming to you maybe at their neediest time. So I feel like a referral, perfectly fine.  And — but to share, to give any, really, sort of expression of judgment or of displeasure with someone else’s situation or choices or life, to me, is not — it does not further the therapeutic relationship in any way.

Because the court concluded that Ms. Walden was laid off (and given instructions how to get another job within the agency) for reasons separate from her free exercise rights, it dismissed her claim. Her attorneys are considering appealing the U.S. Supreme Court, saying “[a] counselor who is a Christian shouldn’t lose her job for upholding the highest professional standards.”

For a fact-selective recounting of the events that is heavy on martyrdom, but light on law, check out this video presentation by Family Research Council:

In spite of the fact that the court viewed all the facts in the light most favorable to Ms. Walden, it still dismissed her free exercise claims. She also made a claim against CSC.

Under the contract it held with the CDC to provide counseling services to the CDC employees, CSC was required to discharge an employee at the request of the CDC. It did as it was contractually obligated to do when it laid her off. In doing so, the court held that it did not substantially burden Ms. Walden’s sincerely held religious beliefs.

The court further held that CSC didn’t violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it provided her with a reasonable accommodation when it offered to allow her to give a different reason for referral. And then again when it encouraged her to find alternate employment with the company. If she had done this within one year, she would even have kept her seniority.

Interestingly, the court relied on a very similar case, Bruff v. North Mississippi Health Services.

There, the court held that

the defendant hospital fulfilled its obligation to accommodate the plaintiff counselor’s religiously-based refusal toprovide same-sex relationship counseling when it gave her thirty days to find another position at the hospital and provided her with the assistance of its in-house employment counselor.

The rulings seem pretty reasonable to me. If the clients aren’t harmed by being referred out to another counselor, then everyone can be happy. Counselors don’t have to violate their religious beliefs that they can’t counsel LGBT people, and LGBT get a counselor that really has their best interests in mind. It’s entirely appropriate for a federal employer to terminate a counselor that it believes will use her position to pass judgment on people whose sexuality she disapproves of. I’m glad to see the courts standing up for that principle, especially when it’s founded in so much legal precedent.

So one local resident filed a lawsuit against the city with the help of the ACLU.

The city tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, but Judge Michael F. Urbanski has denied that dismissal. The case has merit, he says.

“Every time the plaintiff attends a board meeting and comes in direct contact with an overtly Christian prayer, she experiences a recurring First Amendment injury,” Urbanski wrote in his opinion.

The injunction is not permanent, but it does order the board to stop praying until the case is settled.

“This is an important first step,” said Kent Willis, the executive director of ACLU of Virginia. “With a very strong opinion from the judge indicating that we are legally on the right track.”

There’s just one caveat to the whole thing…

If “Jane Doe” wants to proceed with the lawsuit, she has to give up her anonymity:

According to Willis, the ACLU’s next steps are to speak with the plaintiff about how to proceed. They requested she remain anonymous because of the hostile environment over the issue and because she feared for her safety if her identity were released. “Jane Doe” is a county resident who regularly attends board meetings, Willis said.

“Given the degree of anger this lawsuit has engendered in Pittsylvania County, we are disappointed that the judge did not grant request for anonymity,” said ACLU of Virginia legal director Rebecca Glenberg in a news release. “We are consulting with our client about how to best proceed.”

The ACLU can appeal the judge’s decision denying anonymity, but if “Jane Doe” does not appeal or disclose her identity, there is no plaintiff and no case, according to Willis.

I’m sure there’s some legal reason for this — at least, I hope that’s why they’re forcing her to make herself known — but what an awful thing to make her do. In the wake of the Jessica Ahlquist ruling, we know just how tough it can be when you take on the religious establishment in a First Amendment case. By going public, Jane Doe would be opening herself up to potential harassment. She risks having her address made public by Christian bullies. And who knows if she has children in local schools who may face persecution of their own?

I don’t even know if she’s an atheist, but that doesn’t matter. Even if she’s a Christian, she’s trying to do the right thing and keep church and state separate. But God-Fearing Christians are never content with that. They love their public displays of faith and they feel justified going after anyone who wants to put a stop to it.

If Jane Doe makes herself known, though, I hope she knows that there are a lot of us out there who would watch out for her and come to her aid should anything happen. Certainly, there are many atheists in Virginia who would come to her side.

(Thanks to Tom for the link)

The FFRF complaint said that during the month of December an assembly held by “Bible Man” included a display with baby Jesus on it and that a talk was given regarding “Jesus’s birthday,” and that “Jesus died on the the cross for our sins.”

On Monday night, the Jackson County Board of Education discussed the FFRF letter. In the audience were over 100 churchgoers — and one state senator! — who didn’t even pretend to buy into church/state separation:

Pastor Brad Bridges [said], “We’re here today to make a show, say ‘hey Christianity is in and we love it. And our nation was founded on it.’”

…

While the complaint before the board cited violations of the constitution, State Senator Shadrack McGill says he doesn’t believe in separation of church and state.

“I don’t believe you keep God out of state. Church represents the body of Christ, Christ being the head of that body. No, I don’t believe in that separation,” said Sen. McGill.

Even the Superintendent joined in, admitting that Bible Man activities took place during the school day:

“The ‘Bible Man’ was part of my school time and my children’s school time,” said [Superintendent Ken] Harding.

So what did the school board do?

They look like a fair-minded, Constitution-savvy group...

They caved in to the will of the mob:

Once the board returned from executive session and announced that “Bible Man” would not be taken out of the schools, crowd members stood up and cheered.

Members of the church and school board say the assemblies are a choice, but when an assembly takes place during the school day — at an elementary schools, no less — kids are hardly aware of any other options they have. The school board made the wrong decision and they fully deserve any lawsuit coming their way.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

In a release, Steve Brown, executive director of the RIACLU, said the amount includes major discounts for hours of work by volunteer attorneys Lynette Labinger and Thomas Bender. He also said the amount is mindful of the school district’s budget woes in recent years.

“In terms of its complexity, the ACLU noted that the school district initially raised ten affirmative defenses when it filed its answer to the lawsuit. The amount sought by the ACLU attorneys pales in comparison to the attorneys’ fees that lawyers working with the Becket Fund, the national group that assisted the school district in defending the case, obtained in a church-state lawsuit two years ago. In that case from Colorado, dealing with a church zoning dispute, attorneys working with the Becket Fund were awarded over $1.25 million in attorneys’ fees for their work handling the case in the district court.”

…

“The Cranston School Committee was fully informed from the beginning that a decision to move forward with this case would likely result in the payment of attorney’s fees if they were not successful,” Brown said. “In fact, in an attempt to avoid the costs of litigation and spare the taxpayers, we waited eight months before filing suit in the hope that this matter could be informally resolved. Despite those efforts, the school committee voted to mount a vigorous defense of the prayer in court, leading to today’s filing.”

As a teacher, part of me feels bad that this money is being taken away from the students… but the school district brought this upon themselves. They wanted to fight to keep an illegal Christian banner in their auditorium. They wanted to push religion onto all students. They could’ve just taken down the banner right up front and put that money toward more teachers and more resources, but they chose not to.

The adminstrators in that district cared more about their public display of religion than the education of the children. They deserve to pay a penalty for that. Too bad the taxpayers have to foot the bill.

(via WWJTD)

The anger and hatred directed at Ms. Ahlquist — she was called “an evil little thing” on talk radio by a Cranston state representative — helps explain why the judge, responding to her brave lawsuit, did his duty under the Constitution and ordered immediate removal of the prayer, which begins “Our Heavenly Father” and concludes “Amen” and was visible throughout the auditorium.

…

… Recent meetings in Cranston about the prayer involved the kind of “excessive entanglement with religion” the court has warned against, with prayer backers reading from the Bible. The meetings showed why what believers consider a harmless request to respect a prayer can feel like coercion to nonbelievers.

… The kindness, friendship and other values the prayer champions are universal, but a statement of religious belief has no place in a public high school auditorium.

The fact that her story is getting such coverage on a national scale shows that this isn’t just about some local banner. It’s symbolic of how Christians love to force their views on everyone else, sometimes in illegal ways, and then cry foul when someone calls them out on it.

Jessica’s scholarship fund, by the way, has raised over $36,000 on her behalf. Some college atheist groups have told me they’re raising funds for her, some donations have been made directly to the American Humanist Association, and t-shirt sales still need to be included in the total amount. What you’re all doing for her is truly amazing.

Von Lester Taylor - Utah Department of Corrections

After Von Lester Taylor pled guilty to murdering a mother and her daughter, a jury sentenced him to death.  Taylor now claims that one juror should have been disqualified due to his belief in “blood atonement” and that the entire jury selection process was invalid because evidence suggests the prosecution was deliberately excluding jurors who were not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The Supreme Court of Utah ultimately held Taylor should have raised these claims earlier in the appeals process and that, because Taylor provided no valid reason for his delay, it is now too late for the court to consider the claims.

Even though the decision focuses on procedure rather than on religion, the case poses some really interesting questions:

First, the blood atonement issue.  Blood atonement is generally understood as the belief that murder is so atrocious that it can only be forgiven if the murderer’s blood is shed.  In a murder trial such as Taylor’s, this seems problematic: Does this mean the juror would only feel comfortable sentencing a murderer to death, rather than some lesser punishment like life in prison?

In Taylor’s case, the answer happened to be no, as the Supreme Court of Utah held in an earlier appeal that the juror “believed the doctrine of blood atonement referred to the Christian belief that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world and not to the principle that anyone who kills must be killed,” and the juror believed “there may be circumstances in which a defendant who deliberately killed another person might not deserve the death penalty.”

But what if the answer had been yes?  What if the juror believed that the only acceptable punishment for murder was death?  Certainly it would not be fair for the defendant to be sentenced by this juror, as the juror’s sentence recommendation might always be death, regardless of the circumstances.

Which leads to another interesting question: Can attorneys reject jurors on the basis of their religion?  When selecting a jury for trial, attorneys are allowed to exclude potential jurors because, for example, there is good reason to believe the juror would not be able to be fair (that would be “for cause” exclusion).  Attorneys are also allowed a certain number of peremptory challenges, which they may use to exclude potential jurors that they simply don’t care for.  In Batson v. Kentucky (1986), however, the Supreme Court held “the Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State’s case against a black defendant.”

Does this prohibition extend to religion?  Religion, like race, carries a lot of import in this country.  If attorneys can’t exclude jurors on the basis of their race, then must they also be neutral with respect to religion?  Taylor himself complains that the prosecutor unfairly excluded non-Mormons, even though Taylor wanted the blood atonement juror excluded on the basis of a religious belief.

When I first read this case, my gut reaction was that Taylor was right (if the facts were exactly as he claimed them to be): A juror who believes in blood atonement should be excluded, yet prosecutors should not be able to favor Mormons in the jury selection process.  But how is this legally defensible, as both involve discriminating on the basis of religion?

This question has not been answered by the United States Supreme Court, but a case out of the Tenth Circuit suggests a resolution.  In U.S. v. Prince (2011), the Tenth Circuit explained there is a difference between religious belief and religious affiliation.  A prosecutor may strike a potential juror on the basis of religious belief (like the belief in blood atonement), but may not strike a potential juror on the basis of religious affiliation (like not being Mormon).  The court explains a prosecutor “may undoubtedly strike a juror for being unwilling to sit in judgment of another human being, but he may not infer solely from a prospective juror’s race, gender, or religion that he will be unwilling to sit in judgment of another, and then offer that unwillingness as a permissible basis for a peremptory challenge.”

Here, the existing law lines up quite nicely with my visceral reaction to the facts of the case.  What was your visceral reaction to these facts?  If you were on trial, who would you want excluded from your jury, and why?

Atheists don’t always get positive coverage in the media, so it’s an encouraging sign, especially after everything Jessica’s been going through:

Jessica Ahlquist (Gretchen Ertl - The New York Times)

She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

…

Brittany Lanni, who graduated from Cranston West in 2009, said that no one had ever been forced to recite the prayer and called Jessica “an idiot.”

“If you don’t believe in that,” she said, “take all the money out of your pocket, because every dollar bill says, ‘In God We Trust.’ ”

Compare that ignorant soundbyte to Jessica’s pitch-perfect line at the end of the story:

Does [Jessica] empathize in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay?

“I’ve never been asked this before,” she said. A pause, and then: “It’s almost like making a child get a shot even though they don’t want to. It’s for their own good. I feel like they might see it as a very negative thing right now, but I’m defending their Constitution, too.”

What a great analogy.

I’ve been asked a few times over the past couple of weeks if I’m surprised at the amount of money people are donating toward her scholarship fund.

My response has been the same: I’m not surprised at all. Of course people want to chip in to her future success. Jessica embodies our movement at its best — she’s brave, she defends the separation of church and state, she’s eloquent when speaking about the lawsuit and her beliefs, and she’s not letting the religious majority in her community keep her down.

This article just reinforces everything we already knew about her.

…

***Update***: There’s some misinformation being spread about Jessica possibly transferring schools. Jessica has denied this rumor, so please stop perpetuating it:

…

Perhaps I’d gotten too cynical, but I didn’t see this good turn of events coming. As announced yesterday, religious leaders in Cranston, Rhode Island stepped up to defend Jessica and speak out against the hateful comments, the bullying, and the threats.

Here were the rapid reactions I jotted down as I watched:

• Yes, like you, I cringed every time the news anchors opened their mouths to talk about the case. I would have loved it if they actually stated facts as facts: The banner was unconstitutional. We can cite the judge’s authority. Some threats were death threats. They were made publicly. There’s no reason to make them sound like allegations, they’re facts viewers should know.
• I’m a bit confused about what the clergy was trying to say by comparing Jessica as a prophet.
• I’m ever so glad that someone is condemning the death threats because they still hope Jessica will come to faith. (Yes, that was my sarcastic face.)
• When Jessica used the phrase “I already won the lawsuit — and fairly so,” I couldn’t help but start grinning. I’m not sure why, but the way she slipped it in was perfect. For some reason, that was left out of the WPRI transcript online.
• I also loved the way Rev. Gene Dyszlewski called out the “radio demagoguery.” Damn straight. It WAS toxic and harmful.
• It would have been nice to hear a defense of the separation of church and state, though the press release mentions that they “speak in support of Jessica Ahlquist’s right to challenge the banner at Cranston High School West.” Perhaps that didn’t make it into the two minutes of air time.

Overall, I’m really glad to see this press conference happen. True, the bar wasn’t set very high. It would be a sad day indeed if religious moderates wouldn’t come out in favor of the Constitution and against death threats to 16-year-old girls.

Jessica’s case has been deeply polarizing in her community — but at least we’re finding out which “pole” the religious moderates are closer to. It brought together 18 leaders: Baptists and UU’s, Jews and Muslims, all coming together to defend an atheist from violence. We atheists often say that we need the religious moderates to be on our side, condemning the extremists. This is a start.