Fredericksburg City Counsilman Fights For Right To Pray In Jesus Name
Posted on January 11, 2006
It is happening all across the nation. The ACLU sue city counsil after city counsil over praying in Jesus name. They don’t sue to stop all prayer, but in every case the target has been Christian prayer. They even fought for the right of a Wiccan to pray at a counsil meeting. Many times it doesn’t even take a lawsuit. They just type up a threatening letter and that does the trick. This was the case in Fredericksburg. But one man isn’t taking things lying down.
Fredericksburg City Councilman Hashmel Turner has filed suit against his fellow council members, saying the council’s newly adopted prayer policy violates his constitutional rights.
Turner is being represented by the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates for free expression issues.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, asks the court to rule that the city’s prayer policy is unconstitutional, and to order that Turner be allowed back into the council’s prayer rotation.
The council voted 5-1 in November to adopt a policy of offering non-denominational prayers devoid of any Christian or other specific religious references.
Turner abstained from that vote, and Councilman Matt Kelly voted against the policy.
The vote came after Turner had been excluded from the council prayer rotation for more than a year. The council got a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union in July 2004 saying that the civil liberties group would file suit if Turner continued to invoke the name of Jesus Christ in his prayers.
Turner, who is pastor at First Baptist Church of Love in Fredericksburg, had always closed his prayers before council meetings by invoking the name of Jesus Christ before the ACLU complaint.
On the same night of the November vote for the nondenominational prayer policy, Turner asked to be put back into the prayer rotation, and to give the opening prayer before the Nov. 22 council meeting.
Mayor Tom Tomzak said today he asked Councilwoman Debby Girvan to give the prayer at that meeting instead of Turner, because, “I did not want to unleash a 1,000-pound gorilla-the ACLU-on the City Council.”
However, Tomzak said he does believe Turner’s rights are being violated, and the suit filed today is “a lawsuit that I probably agree with.”
“He’s a very passionate man, a man of faith and a man of principle, and he believes his rights have been violated,” Tomzak said of Turner.
Neither City Council members nor City Attorney Kathleen Dooley had seen copies of the lawsuit earlier today.
The suit calls the new prayer policy “an unlawful attempt by the City Council to prescribe the content of prayers given at City Council meetings by Turner and other members of City Council.”
John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, said Turner approached his organization last fall, saying he believed his rights were being violated. “All he wants is to say Jesus Christ at the end of the prayer,” Whitehead said. “He’s not asking for any money. … It’s a very simple suit.”
One would think that it would be simple, yet the ACLU don’t seem to get that. Religious expression in America is under attack. It is a shame that an organization that claims to protect our rights are the number one censor of Christian religious expression. If they were trying to get rid of all prayer at counsel meetings, we would have a different argument, but they are targeting Christian prayers and individual expression. It is good to see this man is standing up for his rights. More people should do so.
Currently there is legislation, introduced by Representative Hostettler that could put a stop to these ridiculous lawsuits. Hostettler’s proposal would amend the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to prohibit prevailing parties from being awarded attorney’s fee in religious establishment cases, but not in other civil rights filings. This would prevent local governments from having to use taxpayer funds to pay the ACLU or similar organization when a case is lost, and also would protect elected officials from having to pay fees from their own pockets.
SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP TAXPAYER FUNDING OF THE ACLU
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15 Responses to “Fredericksburg City Counsilman Fights For Right To Pray In Jesus Name”
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He’ll win this law suit. That’s one reason why you don’t see the ACLU on Capital Hill trying to sue all of Congress, who only pray to the Judeo-Christian God before every session.
I’d also like to remind atheists whose ears bleed when they hear Jesus’ name that the Constitution does not protect anybody’s right to not be offended. There is no such right. If something publicly offends you you have the right to walk away or cover your ears. If we do have a right to not be offended, the next couple of homosexuals I see holding hands are going to get sued out of house and home.
Let the ACLU Stalin-Fascists attack the citizens of Southern California. You friggin booggers haven’t lived thru Hell until you’ve messed with us.
Try it friend, and you’ll find out what the citizens’ vigilance committees are all about! You’re too friggin stupid to figure out that we’re fed up with your corrupt manipulations with the murderer Ted Kennedy and the indentity thief Chuck Shummer!!!
All he has to do is sneeze…then all of his buddies can say God Bless You! We did that at my HS since we were on gvt property (Ft Knox) and we could not have a prayer or any reference to God. Worked out great and the administration just loved it!
Interesting. Fredericksburg is the city where Jefferson wrote his Statute for Religious Freedom, in 1786.
Text here.
ACLU fights to stop Airport Terror screening-
check it out-
http://dicklist.blogspot.com
If someone wanted to close city council meetings with “Allah be praised,” this wouldn’t fly either. Quit complaining that Christians are being unfairly targeted. Targeted, yes, but only appropriately. The guy can say his prayer without adding “Jesus Christ,” can’t he? If he can’t yammer about Jesus in goverment proceedings, does this mean his faith in Jesus will collapse or that Christ himself never existed? Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.
It’s not about being “offended” by mention of Jesus, as some of you twittering dingbats think. It’s about heading down the path toward the sanctioning of one religion in a manner that would make it politically easy and expedient to exclude or marginalize nonbelievers or people from other faiths — something the founders of this country precisely feared and hoped to forestall. The ACLU is merely carrying out the wishes of the Constitutions framers.
Also, if the Frederickburg council “voted 5-1 in November to adopt a policy of offering non-denominational prayers devoid of any Christian or other specific religious references,” who is this guy to moan and groan? Has he not heard of democracy? The sense of entitlement held by some Christians is nauseating.
“If we do have a right to not be offended, the next couple of homosexuals I see holding hands are going to get sued out of house and home.”
Outstanding. We’ll add basic bigotry to your endless list of caharcter defects.
If it becomes common practice at city council meetings or other government proceedings to have a couple of gay men give a verbal description or a physical demonstration of homosexuality, in so doing extolling its many virtues, then you can complain. But if you liken the sight of two guys holding hands in public to the approval of sectarian prayers in a city council meeting, you are too far beyond stupid for me to even properly insult you.
I repeat: This letter from the ACLU is *not* about anyone being “offended.” Folks, try to think beyond your reactionary hysteria for two seconds.
Where’s My Haldol: Wrong. The ACLU has no right to interfere. This man has every right to pray in Jesus’ name at city council meetings. In case you have missed the last 200 years genius, they still pray in Jesus’ name at CONGRESSIONAL MEETINGS. The founding fathers penned the Constitution, and then established prayer in Congress, 10 Commandments in courthouses, tax money for the conversion of Indians to Christianity, and so. Pretty sure they’d no if they were violating their own clause.
“We’ll add bigotry to your endless list of character defects.”
Sure. You want people to believe they are biological accidents, and have no real value, but I’m the bigoted one.
I love how you refer to the supposed conversion to Christianity of American Indians with every post. How did that eventually work out?
“Sure. You want people to believe they are biological accidents, and have no real value, but I’m the bigoted one.”
Yes, you are. You’re a homophobe. Keep complaining about the mistreatment of Christians even while many of those selfsame douche bags are forever trying to bar gays from certain jobs, keep them from having monogamous and intimate relationships, and more.
Evolution doesn’t imply that people are “biological accidents” (insemination and impregnation has something to do with the production of people, no?) or that their lives are without value, although I’m not surprised that you, with your absent grasp on science, believe that it does. But even if this were the case, so what? Does that fact that we’re not here for any higher purpose or to serve nonexistent, ugly, psychotic skygods imply that we can’t make anything of ourselves and our lives? Of course not.
I have no quarter with the supernatural creations of human beings, and my life is great; you believe you were put here by God, and your life is still worthless. What does that tell you?
Maybe you can show me what you’ve contributed then, since my life is soooo worthless? Didn’t think so. By the way, the attempt to convert Indians did and has been working out fine. Not sure what you’re trying to prove there. But as far as a life being of value or worthless, I wonder how you’ve set yourself up as an authority on that subject? Right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, are all obsolete in your world. Oh, I get it. Your great great granddaddy King Kong taught the first humans right from wrong. I know, you don’t need a “sky-god” to teach you right from wrong. Everyone with common sense and decency knows right from wrong. Which is why the world is peaceful, and everyone loves one another, huh?
If your life was so great, you wouldn’t waste it spending nights on the internet trying to make everyone else feel bad about theirs. I know its lonely in oblivion, but a decent person wouldn’t want to drag others into their loathsome pit of meaninglessness. You really need to toughen up.
Jay: See my last post on the previous thread.
Add my name in. They are communists and it is crazy for my taxes to go to any of their “lawyers”.
["They don't sue to stop all prayer, but in every case the target has been Christian prayer."]
Why is it that, as Christ preached honesty, too many Christian leaders must use deceit to further their beliefs?
In the first place, they were not and are not attacking the Christian religion. The point was to bar government from promulgating “sectarian” prayer of any kind. To say they were attacking Christianity is a dishonest spin of the facts.
And from the Family Research Council website: ["The Fredericksburg City Council's new prayer policy, however, now bans opening prayers only if they mention Jesus' name." and, "Once again, the ACLU "bristles with hostility" to the Christian religion."]
The City Council’s new policy does not ban prayer only if it mentions Jesus. It bans sectarian prayer (the mention of any particular religious figure, such as Brahma, Buddha, Mohammad, etc. Nor does the council ban anyone from saying a prayer. Councilman Hashmel Turner may continue saying opening meeting with prayer so log as it is not sectarian. As an arm of the government, the First Amendment disallows Turner from recognizing/furthering a particular religion.
Further, it is dishonest to state that the ACLU “‘bristles with hostility’ to the Christian religion. Note the following:
http://www.aclu.org/religion/frb/16040prs20020417.html
ACLU of Rhode Island Files Appeal on Behalf of Christian Prisoner Barred from Preaching at Religious Services
ACLU of Michigan Defends Catholic Man Coerced to Convert to Pentecostal Faith in Drug Rehab Program
ACLU Files Lawsuit to Protect Religious Liberty of Imprisoned Asylum Seeker
There are more of which you can research.
The only reason why the ACLU seems to go after Christians more is that this country is by far predomanatly Christian, and being the dominate religion, too many times we try to use the power of government to advance our beliefs. Shouldn’t Christians value honesty?
Mescalero: citizens’ vigilance committees ?
Oh please. Will you and the rest of your ZOG-fighting brethren please put on clean underwear and get some therapy ?
It’s too bad that for real conservatives like me, our movement has the great unwashed like you for its poster children. At least liberals can spell. I quote your post, which you wrote with no discernible sense of irony:
“You’re too friggin stupid to figure out that we’re fed up with your corrupt manipulations with the murderer Ted Kennedy and the indentity thief Chuck Shummer!!!”
One ‘n’ in identity, champ; one ‘m’ in Schumer. And a ‘c’, too, if you don’t mind. And what on earth are you speaking of ?
As for the ACLU attacking Christianity: well, Jesus is a big boy. He can take care of himself. The ACLU attacks bigotry and narrowmindedness. So I can see why you feel put upon.
Have fun with your little ‘citizen’s vigilance committee,’ you great baboon. And remember, it’s never too late to learn phonics.