Officials in Thomasville, N.C., voted 6-1 Monday to ignore threats from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and allow prayer at city-council meetings.
Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), provided the council with a proposed policy in compliance with the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s amazing that, in a country founded on religious liberty, the right to open a public meeting with a prayer would be under attack,” he said. “But that is exactly what the ACLU has been doing the past several months – using its familiar tactics of fear, intimidation and disinformation to force municipalities into passive compliance with its agenda to eliminate our First Liberty, religious freedom.”
Councilman Dwight Cornelius said he hopes other municipalities will stand up to the ACLU.
“This is a freedom of speech issue, pure and simple,” he said.
ADF offers assistance to any municipality that’s under attack for “simply continuing a practice that the Supreme Court knows is ‘deeply embedded in the history and tradition of our country,’ ” Johnson added.
