Written by Don Byrd
Via Religion Clause, a Virginia federal court has issued in injunction barring Pittsylvania County’s Board of Supervisors from continuing its practice of opening meetings with sectarian prayer. Citing the 4th Circuit’s ruling in Forsyth County, the Court added:
This preliminary injunction does not preclude the Board from beginning its meetings with a prayer that does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause. The Board may open its meetings with a prayer or invocation, but in doing so it “must strive to be nondenominational so long as that is reasonably possible it should send a signal of welcome rather than exclusion. lt should not reject the tenets of other faiths in favor of just one.”
