Dispute After Prayer Cancelled at Charlotte City Council

CHARLOTTE, NC — No prayer for now at Charlotte City Council meetings.

Mayor Jennifer Roberts announced the change Monday night, but there’s disagreement over why.

“We are not going to have an invocation tonight. We are going to change the way that we conduct it on the expert advice of our attorney with the concern over freedom of religion, separation of church and state and some recent court rulings,” said Mayor Roberts at the meeting.

However, the debate in Charlotte is about who said not to pray.

City Attorney Bob Hagemann says he did not tell council to stop prayers.

WCCB Charlotte obtained his e-mail to council saying, “…I have not concluded and have not advised that the council’s invocation practice is unconstitutional. And I did not advise you to end the practice.”

E-mails show the attorney told council to be careful not to exclude certain religions
because a district court ruled

Rowan County commissioner’s prayer carried legal risks because it favored Christian prayer.

“I think it’s gotten blown out of proportion,” said Councilman Ed Driggs.

Driggs says, behind the scenes, it was not the Mayor’s decision but a group decision.

“We kind of looked at each other, and we said what are we doing about the invocation because we know we need to do something,” said Driggs. “We thought, okay, the safest thing on short notice like that is just not to have one tonight and think about it.”

Driggs calls it a distraction that could keep people from working together.

“We need to stay focused on our public safety issues on our housing issues transportation,” said Driggs. “We don’t want to get distracted by inflammatory things like this which could pit people against each other.”

Mayor Roberts sent council members an e-mail saying she is referring this issue to the Governance and Accountability Committee for open discussion so that the process is clear and there is time for public input.