Fighting Over Prayers In The Name Of Jesus

Commentary
Inside the First Amendment

By Charles C. Haynes
First Amendment Center senior scholar

Meetings of the Board of Commissioners in Forsyth County, N.C., have long opened with mostly Christian prayers — and a majority of the commissioners are determined to keep it that way. As far as they’re concerned, what the Christian majority wants, the Christian majority should get.

Last month, however, a federal judge called a halt to the practice of praying in…