Ohio town's public prayer attacked; ADF recommends policy, free defense
ADF explains that Chillicothe officials can continue longstanding American tradition
“America’s founders opened public meetings with prayer, and public officials today should be able to do the same,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Brett Harvey. “We truly want city officials to be able to confidently continue their traditional practice of offering invocations at assemblies, and there’s no constitutional reason that they cannot do so.”
The Chillicothe City Council received a complaint from a local resident who claimed that the invocations taking place at the city’s public meetings might be unconstitutional because non-religious attendees and others might feel offended or excluded by the longstanding practice.
“Some people have been misled to believe that honorable, traditional practices such as prayer before public meetings must be given up simply because someone might feel offended, but that’s simply not true,” Harvey explained. “Just because someone might feel offended doesn’t mean that a constitutional violation has occurred. Federal courts have recognized this time and time again, despite the disinformation spread by many secularist groups seeking to eradicate everything religious from the public square.”
“Public prayer has been an essential part of our heritage since the time of this nation’s founding, and our Constitution has always protected the activity. Such prayers may include sectarian references without automatically running afoul of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause…,” the letter from Burkhart states. “ADF has helped hundreds of city councils, school boards, county councils, and state legislatures develop policies regarding public prayer. In fact, ADF has developed model policies that have been implemented across the country. ADF has authorized me to inform you that should Chillicothe adopt a policy developed by ADF, ADF will defend the policy’s validity in court at no charge to the City.”
In a separate but similar situation in August, a South Carolina town adopted a version of the ADF invocations policy after a secularist group issued legal threats against the town. The same month, a federal court ruled that a New York town’s prayer policy defended by ADF was constitutional.
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.
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ABOUT Brett Harvey
Brett Harvey serves as senior counsel and vice president of allied legal affairs with Alliance Defending Freedom. He has assisted state and local governments on issues involving public invocations and religious expression, and he has successfully represented clients in defense of their First Amendment freedoms and the right to life. Harvey and the Allied Legal Affairs team he leads focus on recruitment, professional engagement, and integration of allies into ADF’s advocacy efforts, including coordinating amicus efforts at state supreme courts, circuit courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Harvey earned his J.D. from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University in Georgia in 1995. He is admitted to the bar in the states of Georgia, Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. Harvey has also been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the 6th, 9th, 10th, and 11th Circuits; and the U.S. District Court in Colorado. He joined Alliance Defending Freedom in 2000 and has been practicing law since 1995.