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Contempt Citation Sought For Violation of School Event Prayer Ban In Florida District

By Howard M. Friedman

Earlier this month, a Florida federal district court formally approved a consent decree barring the Santa Rosa (FL) school district and its employees from including prayers in any school event. (See prior posting.) Yesterday's Pensacola (FL) News Journal reports that now the ACLU has filed a motion seeking to hold school clerical employee Michelle Winkler in contempt for violating the consent decree. Winkler called on her husband-- who is not employed by the district-- to deliver a prayer at the school district's "non-instructional employee of the year" banquet after Winkler was told that she could not offer a prayer, but only a nonreligious "thought of the day." In seeking permission, Winkler had e-mailed a supervisor, saying: "I would like to use the prayer I had prayed about and received from God and will suffer whatever consequences for." The contempt motion contends that district officials should have intervened to stop the prayer at the banquet, or at least afterward told those in attendance that it violated the court order.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on May 15, 2009 (boomark / email).