Bill Seeks to Clarify Prayer Rules at Public Meetings

A bill that would clarify how local government bodies in South Carolina could open their meetings with prayers took its first step at the Statehouse Thursday. A Senate subcommittee passed the bill unanimously, so it now goes to a full committee. The bill says groups like city and county councils and local school boards could start meetings with invocations as long as one religion was not advanced and no one was coerced into participating.

Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, is the main sponsor of the bill and chaired the subcommittee meeting. He says the bill would put into state law a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows local government groups to begin their meetings with invocations.

Dr. Oran Smith, president and CEO of Palmetto Family, says it’s been a problem in the past. “Spartanburg County, the city of Woodruff, … the city of Aiken, and the Savannah River Site all were having prayer and received hot letters that said they couldn’t have prayer anymore. But since then they’ve adopted policies that are right down the line with this new statute,” he says.

Sen. Campsen says he hasn’t heard any opposition to the bill yet, since it follows what the Supreme Court has already said in the Town of Greece v. Galloway case. But the national Freedom From Religion Foundation says it is against the bill. 

A spokesman for the group says the bill would allow members of the governmental bodies to give the prayers, but there are no Supreme Court rulings that say that’s acceptable.