Written by Don Byrd
Here’s a great way to end a Friday. Just read this. When Pickens County (SC) school superintendent Dr. Kelly Pew supported a sensible, responsible change in the Board’s invocation policy in opening its monthly meetings, she got slammed from the expected corners of the Religious Right. How many times have we seen elected officials make the right decision in a church-state matter, only to back down once political pressure begins to mount? Here, instead of shriveling to the inaccurate charges that she was removing prayer from schools, Dr. Pew is smartly defending her view instead.
In a letter to the editor of the Easley Patch, she explains why religious freedom principles demand this change. Here’s a snippet.
South Carolina law and the First Amendment protect religious liberty of the individual from government interference, and in so doing they guard against the use of government to promote specific versions of religion. The same rules apply to the meetings of city and county councils.
Non-sectarian invocations before the meetings of deliberative government bodies is a tradition that extends to the very first meeting of the U.S. Congress—the same Congress that passed the First Amendment. I am in favor of maintaining that tradition, which has been upheld in court. But the tradition has only been upheld in cases of non-sectarian prayer―prayers addressed to God but not favoring or disfavoring any one faith or belief. The basis for the change in Board practice, solely at its own meetings, is therefore simple, and the solution is a prudent adherence to honored traditions of many governing bodies in American history.
