'Jane Doe' finally speaks on Pittsylvania prayer

Barbara Hudson, who filed a lawsuit in September against the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors under the name “Jane Doe,” said the legal battle over board-led sectarian Christian prayer during public meetings is not about her.

“It’s about the Establishment Clause (of the First Amendment), about preserving religious freedom in the United States from government interference,” Hudson, an attorney, said Wednesday during her first interview with the Danville Register & Bee since she revealed her connection to the case.

The Establishment Clause says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That is the crux of the lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia filed against the board of supervisors on behalf of Hudson.

Hudson said she initially pursued legal action anonymously because of what she saw as incendiary reaction from supervisors when the ACLU asked them to cease board-led sectarian Christian prayers during meetings.

Supervisors at first refused to stop holding invocations referring to Jesus Christ after the ACLU requested they put an end the practice in August. They later moved prayers from the start of the meetings to before them. Federal Court Judge Michael Urbanski recently ordered the board to cease holding sectarian public prayers while the case is pending.

At their meeting immediately following the ACLU’s request, all seven supervisors said an individual prayer out loud, with references made to Jesus Christ. Just weeks before Hudson filed the lawsuit, a prayer rally that attracted hundreds of people was held during the board’s Sept. 6 meeting, with people spilling out of the courthouse building in Chatham.

Of the board’s actions, Hudson said, “That was pure incitement by the board of supervisors. It surely could have been handled differently.”

During that September meeting, public prayer supporters filled the courtroom, with many from the flock — including local elected officials — speaking during the hearing of the residents. Hudson, who attended the meeting, said she would have feared for her physical well-being if she had expressed opposition to the board’s practice.

The lawsuit against the board is not an attack on anyone’s religion, Hudson said. Supervisor-led sectarian Christian prayers during public meetings amount to government promotion of one religion over others. That creates a danger to everyone’s religious freedom, she said.

Why don’t the supervisors just pray to one God, with an all-encompassing invocation? Hudson asked.

“They could have avoided the whole thing by praying in the name of God,” said Hudson, who is not a Christian. “They want to promote their own version of religion.”

“I just think it’s very sad that the board of supervisors refuses to embrace the idea of God as a source of comfort and guidance, that it has to be sectarian religion,” Hudson said.

Hudson declined to reveal her faith.

“I think religion is a very deeply personal issue,” Hudson said.

The board has been rigid in their approach to the issue of public prayer during meetings, she said.

“It seems to me the position they’re taking is a very inflexible one,” Hudson said.