Emotional prayer-policy debate returns to agenda

EASLEY – After lying dormant for four months, the Pickens County School Board prayer policy is back on the agenda.

Trustee Alex Saitta revived the controversial issue, saying the district has received information from the state attorney general and the district’s insurance company since tabling the policy last October. The information clarifies questions over the district’s legal position.

The proposed policy, which Saitta and trustees Phillip Bowers and Henry Wilson voted to bring back up for debate, would allow local ministers to offer prayers at meetings according to the dictates of their consciences, on a rotating basis.

“A motion is tabled to postpone an item for future consideration, not kill it,” Saitta said. “Months have passed since that information has come back to the board.

“The policy deserves a simple up or down vote.”

The board voted 3-2 Monday night to put the issue on the agenda for next month’s regular meeting March 23, with trustees Judy Edwards and Chairman Brian Swords opposing. Board member Herbert Cooper was absent.

The proposed policy is based on one that the U.S. Supreme Court approved in a case involving the town of Greece, New York, that state Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a letter to the Pickens County School Board’s attorney provides “a road map” for the board to follow.

The district’s attorney has told the board there are differences in the school board’s legal status compared to the town council in New York, and that the ruling doesn’t offer any guarantee of legal protection against a lawsuit.

Reviving the issue brings back to the table a controversy that has attracted crowds of protesters at board meetings over the past two years.

Under the current policy, in place since April 2013, board members offer nonsectarian prayers – not mentioning the name of Jesus or any other specific deity – at the start of meetings. But members of the public are allowed to pray during the public session portion in any manner they choose, and some have continued to do so on a regular basis.

The current policy was implemented after the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit that promotes separation of state and church, sent a letter to the board describing its practice of allowing students to deliver the invocation as “a serious constitutional violation.”

Student prayers often were offered in the name of Jesus and reflected a particularly Christian theological perspective.

When the board was deciding how to respond to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, residents and local pastors packed the board chambers and held prayer vigils outside the district office, crying out for the board to stand firm. But the board voted 3-2-1 to adopt the practice of having the trustees offer invocations without mention of any specific deity or doctrine.

Last September, the board voted unanimously in favor of the new policy, despite the advice of the district’s attorney that the current practice has less legal risk.

The board added language to the proposed policy recommended by its attorney that said a religious leader may offer an invocation “according to the dictates of his own conscience,” but that the board “requests that the public invocation opportunity not be exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other faith or belief, denigrate nonbelievers or religious minorities, threaten damnation or preach conversion.”

It also specifies that the invocation would be offered “for the benefit of the board” and that no one would be required to participate.

“This policy is not intended, and will not be implemented or construed in any way, to affiliate the board with, or express the board’s preference for or against, any faith or religious denomination,” it said.

It called for the district administration to compile a list of religious congregations in Pickens County, updated annually, and for invitations to be mailed to each congregation inviting them to request to be allowed to deliver the invocation at one of the board’s 10 monthly meetings each year.

The same person wouldn’t be allowed to give the invocation more than once a year

The policy called for a disclaimer to be printed on the agenda for each meeting that says: “The invocation that may be offered before the official start of the board meeting will be the voluntary offering of a private citizen, to and for the benefit of the board. The view or beliefs expressed by the invocation or public comment speaker are not endorsed by the board.”