FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — A district court has dismissed a suit by a Virginia city council member who argued the council had violated his freedom of speech by preventing him from praying in Jesus’ name. The case of Hashmel Turner, a pastor and a Fredericksburg, Va., council member, is one of several recently in which courts have had to define the appropriate boundaries for religious expression in civic life.
Turner wanted to invoke Jesus’ name during opening prayers at council meetings; council members take turns offering the invocation. In November 2005, under threat of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, the council adopted a proposal to offer nondenominational prayers. Turner, with the help of The Rutherford Institute of Charlottesville, Va., sued in hopes of gaining court permission to pray as he wished.
On Aug. 14, Chief Judge James R. Spencer of the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., sided with the council, which argued that Turner’s prayer is government speech rather than private speech.
“Since the opening prayer is government speech, it must abide by the mandates of the Establishment Clause,” he ruled, citing U.S. Supreme Court rulings that said the First Amendment prohibits legislative prayers that are sectarian.
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