Atheists Threaten to Sue Harrison School Board Over Opening Prayer
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has threatened to sue the Harrison School Board over the board’s practice of opening its meetings with prayer.
According to The Harrison Daily, the board received a letter from the group after a school patron contacted FFRF.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote that, “It is coercive, embarrassing, and intimidating for non-religious citizens to be required to make a public showing of their nonbelief (by not rising or praying) or else to display deference toward a religious sentiment in which they do not believe, but which their board members clearly do.”
Frankly, I find it a little ironic the Freedom From Religion Foundation would consider something as innocuous as opening a meeting with prayer to be “coercive” and “intimidating,” when the group clearly is trying to intimidate the school board by sending it this letter.
The Harrison School Board is a governing body holding public meetings, and the U.S. Supreme Court as well as lower federal courts have ruled repeatedly that it is constitutional for these sorts of meetings to begin with prayer.
This afternoon the Arkansas House of Representatives failed to pass 