ACLU to City Hall: Pray neutrally

RALEIGH -- In City Hall, god takes a lowercase 'g'. No Jesus. No Christ. No Allah. No Yahweh. No proper nouns.

That's the message sent to four Triangle governments this month -- including Raleigh -- by The American Civil Liberties Union, which wants an end to prayers that refer to a specific religion in the halls of government.

So when the Rev. Dumas Harshaw Jr. opened Raleigh's council meeting Tuesday by speaking of an eternal god "in whom we find mystery and delight," that was probably OK.

But when he finished with "in Christ's name we pray," he crossed the ACLU's line.

"The government should be hands-off on the whole thing," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina. "Government has no role to play when it comes to the religious debate."

The letter that landed in Raleigh on Tuesday also went to elected officials in Clayton and Pittsboro and to the Chatham County commissioners.

It cites the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits Congress -- and, some believe, all government -- from making any law "respecting an establishment of religion." It also asks that letters of explanation be sent to clergy, and that the ACLU be allowed to review the letters and hear from each local government by Monday.

"I think it's easy to be confused by this stuff," Rudinger said.

At least some of the towns are more defiant than confused.

One Chatham commissioner insisted this week that no one can tell him how to pray. Another said the ACLU's time would be better spent picking up trash along U.S. 64.

In Raleigh, Mayor Charles Meeker took the news Tuesday by asking, "What is the issue raised? We have all kinds of prayers."

Equal opportunities

Not long ago, a rabbi prayed before the council in Hebrew.

"We've had Muslim, Jewish, Hindi, Coptic, Greek orthodox -- you name it," said Councilman Philip Isley, whose Law and Public Safety Committee will address the ACLU's letter Tuesday. "If there's a church, we've had it."

Variety isn't the issue, Rudinger said.

To comply with the law, a government must be neutral and nonsectarian in every prayer. "It doesn't matter that each and every week you have a different religion," Rudinger said.

She confessed to being "a little fuzzy" on whether a simple "Lord" would be acceptable but said she believes clergy cannot quote from specific religious texts. That means The Lord's Prayer, despite having no reference to Jesus, is out.

Rudinger would not speculate on what happens after Monday, and even though Raleigh's council committee meets Tuesday, she felt confident someone would respond before then and ask for extra time.

Isley said he suspects City Attorney Thomas McCormick would advise scrapping prayers altogether, though the ACLU has raised the prayer issue with Raleigh before, and the council opted not to change its policy.

McCormick declined to comment Wednesday.

At Raleigh council meetings, references to Jesus and Christ are common. Clergy often ask God to lend wisdom to the council in difficult times.

But in 2004, a prayer from Hani Chohan of the Islamic Center of Raleigh touched off an incident that council members still discuss.

Then-Councilman Mike Regan, a born-again Christian, walked out of the meeting, citing a "personal feeling" on which he would not elaborate.