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Liberty Counsel’s legal advice led to yesterday’s change of the controversial ban on senior citizens praying over their meal at the Ed Young Senior Citizens Center in Port Wentworth, GA. This controversy began May 7, 2010, when residents of the Ed Young Senior Citizens Center in Port Wentworth, GA were banned from saying prayers aloud before meals. Instead, they were instructed they could only observe a moment of silence before their meal. 

Because seniors taking the meals pay 55 cents per dollar and federal money pays for the rest of the bill, Tim Rutherford, vice president of Senior Citizens mistakenly thought that federal funding would trigger the so-called “church-state separation.” After several conversations with Liberty Counsel educating and encouraging local leadership, yesterday they announced a policy reversal allowing senior citizens to practice their freedom of religion. Now the elderly can voluntarily say grace without any fear of consequences.

In addition, this action has clarified the State of Georgia’s policy on allowing prayer. While originally there was some confusion on the policy, an email recently came from the human resourcing/aging services agency to Senior Citizens Inc. denying the existence of any policy that “would prohibit an individual from praying either publicly or privately, before or after a meal”, and establishing a strong foundation for religious expression within the state. 

Read our News Release for more details.

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