Atheists & Agnostics
Related: About this forumFound this in latest issue of Freethought Today (from FFRF)
This is pretty classic. From the front page of the November issue of Freethought Today, a publication from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Note the bold items below.
Federal judge orders city to pay $60K to FFRF
A federal judge has ordered the city of Parkersburg, W.Va., to pay almost $60,000 to cover attorney fees and costs of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and two of its members related to a winning lawsuit against the city. The case stems from the City Councils decade-plus unconstitutional practice of reciting the Lords Prayer at every meeting. In May, U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr. issued a strong 30-page decision in FFRFs favor. He permanently enjoined the city of Parkersburg from continuing its practice of reciting the Lords Prayer at each City Council meeting. Today, Copenhaver ruled that the city must cover the legal fees and costs of FFRF attorneys and outside counsel, granting $58,031.40 in attorney fees and $971.28 in costs to FFRF and its co-plaintiffs.
In 2018, FFRF and two of its local members had sued the city of Parkersburg in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, to challenge the City Councils formal recitation of the Christian Lords Prayer, which had officially opened every meeting for more than a decade. Council members led the prayer and were joined by city residents at each meeting in reciting it. The plaintiffs include Daryl Cobranchi, who in the past had frequently attended meetings and been directed to stand for the Lords Prayer, a practice, he notes, that has made him conspicuous by his nonparticipation and which assigns to second-class status anyone who is not Christian. Likewise, Eric Engle, a Parkersburg resident, follows city matters and has felt uncomfortable and pressured to participate in the Christian prayer during public meetings.
At least one prior member of the City Council has been openly hostile to nonparticipants in the prayer ritual. Then-Councilman Eric Barber glared at attendees who sat during the prayer at a meeting. At the end of that prayer, Barber positioned himself near his microphone, pressed the button, and shouted, Amen. In June, Barber was sentenced to 45 days in jail for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
FFRF is delighted with the outcome of the case.
We are pleased that the First Amendment has been upheld in this case, that Parkersburg citizens who are not Christian or religious will no longer be treated like second-class citizens, and that we have been able to recoup our costs, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. Gaylor warmly thanks the local plaintiffs for standing up for secular government, a linchpin of U.S. democracy. Both Engle and Cobranchi will be receiving FFRFs Freethinker of the Year awards.
The case is No. 2:18-cv-01198. Legal representation was provided by outside counsel Marcus B. Schneider, local counsel Kristina Thomas Whiteaker, and by FFRF Attorneys Patrick C. Elliott and Christopher Line.
https://russblib.blogspot.com
progressoid
(50,769 posts)LOVE IT!
Farmer-Rick
(11,500 posts)Prayers, of all things, are the most useless, silly, unproductive thing you can do with your time. And yet there they are in a City Council meeting, praying a Christian prayer.
You know why the PTB want to force religion on us? So, they can control and manipulate us. Christianity and a god are cited more often to force people to do what they are told then to help someone.
Behave yourself and do what the filthy rich want you to do or god will get you. Have those babies against your will so we have a never ending source of cheap labor and soldiers. Don't have the kind of sex we disapprove of or you might just start doing what you want and not what the rich and powerful, or Jesus, wants
Freedom from Religion is true freedom. You have to have freedom FROM religion to have freedom OF religion.