Written by Don Byrd
Billy Coleman, the superintendent of Alabama’s Cullman County schools also happens to be Reverend Billy Coleman, a minister in a local church. When he organized a traveling community prayer event to be held outside each public school, it raised some church-state eyebrows. The Freedom From Religion Foundation accused Coleman of using his official public office to promote the prayer event, an allegation the school board rejects.
The Cullman Times quotes from the Board’s statement:
To the extent the event is associated with or attributed to the Cullman County Board of Education that assertion should be clarified. The Prayer Caravan is not school board sponsored and no one has the authority to assert that this is a school sponsored event … If the Prayer Caravan goes forward on August 10, 2013, it goes forward without the endorsement of the Cullman County Board of Education.
There is no reason why an ordained minister can’t also be the superintendent of schools. But he should take steps to keep separate his actions as head of the School Board from his actions as a minister.
