Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Md. Govt. Worker Risks Jail Praying at Meetings; Defies Judge's Order, Opens Meetings with Prayer

A government official in Carroll County, Maryland, said she is willing to go to jail rather than obey a federal judge's ban on sectarian prayers in the county's government meetings, The New American website reports today (April 1, 2014).

On March 26 Federal Judge William Quarles, Jr. ruled that the Carroll County Board of Commissioners must cease opening its meetings with mostly Christian prayers offered in Jesus' name while a lawsuit over the prayers proceeds.

The American Humanist Association filed a complaint over the prayers in 2012, supposedly in behalf of a handful of the county's residents who were made uncomfortable by the monthly petitions for God's help. When the county board refused to stop the prayers, the atheist group filed suit.

On March 27 Carroll County Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier opened the board's meeting by informing her fellow commissioners that she had no intention of following the judge's order. "I am willing to go to jail," said Frazier in comments that were videotaped. "If we cease to believe our rights came from God, we cease to be America..."

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