GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys sent a letter to Mesa County commissioners in Colorado Friday, providing legal counsel on the constitutionality of opening public meetings with an invocation and offering to defend the county pro bono if it adopts a model prayer policy that subsequently gets attacked in court.
“It is sad that some radical secularist groups are trying to eliminate one of our oldest and most cherished American traditions,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. “Public officials throughout our country need to be encouraged and reminded that they can and should resist the increasingly radical demands of secularist groups with regard to invocations before public meetings.”
Members of Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers, along with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, American Atheists, and Freedom from Religion Foundation have stated in local news articles that they are “watching” the situation and are considering legal action over the county’s practice of opening public meetings with a prayer.
In 2007, ADF launched a nationwide effort to advise public bodies of their constitutional right to open meetings with an invocation, mailing thousands of informational letters to local governments (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4195). Since then, ADF attorneys have received numerous requests for assistance from state legislatures and many county and city governments.
“Our country’s Founding Fathers opened their meetings with prayer. Those who oppose Christian invocations are essentially arguing that the Founders were violating the Constitution as they were writing it,” said Johnson.
A copy of the letter sent to the Mesa County Commissioners is available at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/MesaCountyLetter.pdf. A copy of the model prayer policy suggested by ADF attorneys may be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/MesaCountyPolicy.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
www.telladf.org