Florida humanist gives first secular invocation at Brevard County

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A Florida county that previously prohibited secular invocations at public meetings had its first non-religious invocation Tuesday following a yearslong court battle.....

In 2014, David Williamson of the Central Florida Freethought Community asked the Brevard County Commissioners to do a secular invocation at the start of an official meeting.....

In response to the request, Brevard commissioners unanimously approved a measure prohibiting atheist invocations, but they agreed to allow them during the public comments portion of public meetings.....

Williamson and others sued the county over the ban in 2015, being represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

In September 2017, a district court ruled against the county and in July 2019, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit unanimously upheld the decision.

Brevard County has selected invocation speakers in a way that favors certain monotheistic religions and categorically excludes from consideration other religions solely based on their belief systems. Brevard County’s process of selecting invocation speakers thus runs afoul of the Establishment Clause,” wrote Judge Marcus.

“Secular humanists are far from the only group viewed with disfavor … some of the Commissioners and former Commissioners have testified unambiguously that they would not allow deists, Wiccans, Rastafarians, or, for that matter, polytheists to deliver prayers, and that they would have to think long and hard before inviting a Hindu, a Sikh, or a follower of a Native American religion.”

In February 2020, the county agreed to a settlement allowing secular invocations and paying $430,000 in court costs and legal fees, as well as $60,000 in damages to the plaintiffs.

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