AMERICANS WHO regret that the United States is not "a Christian country" should explore residential real-estate offerings in Chesterfield County. The Board of Supervisors there has established Judeo-Christianity as the officially favored faith, and--grab those MLS listings!--a federal court has blessed the deal.
The facts of Simpson v. Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors are undisputed. Since 1984 the county has included during its board meetings nonsectarian invocations by various Chesterfield "religious leaders" identified via the phone book. Contacted by mail, interested pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams respond, later giving their public orisons on a first-come, first-served basis. In 2002, Chesterfield resident Cynthia Simpson asked to join the rotation. Ms. Simpson identified herself as a Wiccan--a witch. Chesterfield refused her request, the county attorney explaining, "Chesterfield's nonsectarian invocations are traditionally made to a divinity that is consistent with the Judeo-Christian tradition." Off to court.
Amazingly, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month overruled the trial court that had struck down Chesterfield's wiccaphobic policy, and upheld the county. The three judges found that the variety of religious speakers the county had welcomed was diverse enough, and the content of the messages they delivered inclusive enough, that Chesterfield satisfied court precedents regarding legislative prayers. In other words: Since the only kinds of prayers Chesterfield tolerates are generic ones, there's no requirement that every single cult, creed, or coven have a place on the county's devotional roster. If all flavors are vanilla, surely 100 vanilla producers suffice. No need for 101.
The ACLU of Virginia, representing Ms. Simpson, is rightly steamed about the 4th Circuit ruling, which pays scrupulous attention to valve stems while ignoring the whole big Mac truck that's flattened the First Amendment in Chesterfield County. Plain as day, the county has anointed one large group of religious beliefs--"Judeo-Christianity" and, in practice, its monotheistic cousins such as Islam--and withheld anointment from another--the pagan tradition represented by Witch Simpson, not to mention such polytheistic creeds as Hinduism and Shinto. There could hardly be a clearer example of the government playing favorites among faiths.
Alas for the ACLU of Virginia, it's playing the same game in Fredericksburg, where, choosing its own preferred precedents, it opposes City Councilman Hashmel Turner's inclusion of the word "Jesus" in the prayers he delivers every three to four months. The ACLU wants Mr. Turner, if he prays at all, to trim his spoken convictions and deliver a nonsectarian invocation, the kind that in fact puts the state on the gauzy side of deists, Unitarians, and pantheists and in opposition to Baptists, Orthodox Jews, and Sunnis--at least those who aren't happy to temporize their belief in a specific god.
A public body may elect to omit all prayer. But, if not, surely the true civil-libertarian position is: More speech! No editing! No discrimination! Whatever words Ms. Simpson or Mr. Turner utters aren't going to help establish any faith except the all-American one of free expression. That's more than can be said for Chesterfield, the 4th Circuit, the ACLU of Virginia, and others lost in little laws.