LA CROSSE, Wis. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys sent an
informational letter offering to provide pro bono legal assistance to La Crosse Common Council officials Thursday if the city adopts a model prayer policy that subsequently gets attacked in court.
"America’s founders opened public meetings with prayer," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "Public officials today should be able to do the same. Those who oppose Christian invocations are essentially arguing that the Founders were violating the Constitution as they were writing it."
Over a period of three days, Americans United for Separation of Church and State threatened legal action against the city of La Crosse as well as Dodge and Vernon counties if they did not agree to stop allowing invocations at the beginning of public meetings. ADF attorneys sent letters to all three bodies offering to provide pro bono legal assistance if they face legal action by AU.
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. Since then, ADF attorneys have received numerous requests for assistance from state legislatures and many county and city governments.
The
Wisconsin Family Council is also monitoring the situation.
"It’s amazing that, in a country founded on religious liberty, the centuries-old choice to open a public meeting with a prayer of the giver’s choosing is coming under attack," said WFC CEO Julaine K. Appling. "Public officials throughout our country need to be encouraged and reminded that they can and should resist the increasingly radical demands of secularist groups."
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