Stanley offers free legal services to Pittsylvania in ACLU case

State Sen. Bill Stanley said he would represent the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors pro bono in its legal fight with the American Civil Liberties Union over opening board meetings with sectarian Christian prayer.

“I’d be more than willing to help them,” Stanley said Tuesday, adding that what the ACLU is doing is wrong.

Board Chairman Tim Barber said he does not know when supervisors will choose an attorney for the case, but will discuss the matter in a closed meeting Monday night. The board has received several offers of free legal representation against the ACLU.

Stanley, who was elected to fill the state Senate seat vacated by Robert Hurt in January, is currently running in a new district against Sen. Roscoe Reynolds. Contacted Tuesday by the Danville Register & Bee, Reynolds declined to comment on Stanley’s offer to the county.

The Virginia ACLU filed a lawsuit against Pittsylvania County Monday in U.S District Court in Danville. It was filed on behalf of an anonymous plaintiff — referred to as “Jane Doe” — who had contacted the organization about the board’s practice of holding sectarian Christian prayer at the start of public meetings.

The ACLU wrote a letter to the board on Aug. 16 asking supervisors to cease opening meetings with prayers referring to Jesus Christ. The board defied the request, with supervisors each saying an individual prayer during its meeting that night.

“At its meeting the same day that the board received the ACLU’s letter, board members offered five separate sectarian prayers,” the ACLU’s release stated.

The ACLU says that the county’s meeting prayers promote one set of religious beliefs over others and must be “broad and inclusive.” Courts, including the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, have upheld that argument, said Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU, in a news release Monday.

The board later passed a resolution removing invocation from its agendas and putting it before meetings. The ACLU said the change was nothing more than window dressing and the prayer remains an official government prayer.

America was founded in Christian principles, and the ACLU is trying to separate God from government, said Stanley, who was part of the legal team that represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment case against then-President Bill Clinton.

“It’s time we stood up the ACLU,” Stanley said, adding that the organization is impinging on supervisors’ free exercise of religion.

Courts have been wrong in the past, Stanley said, referring to the Dred Scott decision, and the pursuit of “separation of church and state” has gone too far.