CHESAPEAKE, Va. — The Alliance Defense Fund together with The Family Foundation of Virginia sent a letter to Chesapeake Mayor Alan Krasnoff and other city officials Tuesday, offering to provide pro bono legal assistance if the city adopts a model prayer policy that subsequently gets attacked in court. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based atheist group, has threatened the city over its practice of opening public meetings with prayer.

“America’s founders opened public meetings with prayer. Public officials today should be able to do the same,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson.  “Those who oppose invocations are essentially arguing that the Founders were violating the Constitution as they were writing it.  The Constitution allows public officials today to do the same thing America’s Founders did.”

In 2007, ADF launched a nationwide effort to advise public bodies of their constitutional right to open meetings with an invocation, mailing thousands of informational letters to local governments. Since then, ADF attorneys have received numerous requests for assistance from state legislatures and many county and city governments.

“There is simply no question that a legislative body may open its sessions with an invocation,” the ADF letter states. “Public prayer has been an essential part of our heritage since the time of this nation’s founding, and our Constitution has always protected the activity. Moreover, such prayer can include sectarian references without running afoul of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.”

“Once again an organization, this time the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has threatened a government body based on flawed legal analysis and misrepresented court cases,” said Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation of Virginia. “It is our hope that the mayor and council members will adopt this policy and put this issue to rest once and for all.”