Steve Mensing, Editor
♦This past Monday the Rowan County commissioners, popularly known around the state as the Rowan County 5, voted 5 to 0 to adopt a prayer policy strategically designed to allow prayer in county meetings if a federal injunction were issued. Chairman Jim Sides told the RFP he hoped the policy would not be not be enacted. The new prayer policy would permit an approved chaplain to open the commissioners meetings with an invocation. The Rowan County commissioners along with their legal team arrived at this policy during a previous closed session according to Chairman Sides. This policy was adopted a few weeks after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a suit on behalf of three Rowan County residents. The suit maintains that the commissioners’ practice of opening meetings with sectarian prayer is unconstitutional.
Chairman Sides told the RFP: ”Having this new prayer policy would permit us to pray during our meetings. The new policy, if implemented, would ask a chaplain to deliver the prayer, avoiding too frequent sectarian references. Our chaplain’s prayer would not proselytize or advance any faith or disparage the religious faith or non-religious views of others.”
“Pastor Michael Taylor will be our chaplain should the need arise ,” said Chairman Sides. “He’s a volunteer chaplain with the our County Sheriff’s Department. He be our first chaplain up. Our policy details how subsequent chaplains would be selected by a commissioners’ vote. This will allow us to keep praying.”
According to the prayer policy: “Members of the commission would not be able to give the invocation nor would they be involved in reviewing the invocation’s content.”
Currently the ACLU is seeking an injunction from the federal courts that would keep the Rowan County Commissioners from performing their sectarian prayers.
The ACLU Lawsuit:
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/03/13/ACLU_lawsuit.pdf
