Anti-Religious Challenge Sheriff's Letter

Special Report - December 1, 2011
The Freedom from Religious Foundation (FFRF) is seeking disciplinary action against a North Carolina Sheriff who placed an advertisement in a local newspaper calling on Americans to turn “back to God’s Law and man’s standards established from God’s Law.” In his letter, printed as an advertisement in the Jacksonville Daily News on October 23, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown sought to remind citizens that “the Truth of God” and “those decent and respectable standards are necessary for an orderly, decent, and respectful society.” Sheriff Brown addressed the letter to “All Decent and Respectable Citizens of a Decent and Respectful Society” on paper with the Official Badge and Seal of the Onslow County Sheriff and signed the letter as “A caring and serving Sheriff, Ed Brown.”

FFRF alleges that Sheriff Brown’s advertisement represents an “illegal government endorsement and flagrant disregard for the Establishment Clause,” contending that “[t]he sole purpose of the letter is to proselytize,” and that “not a single sentence” of the letter “may be constitutionally endorsed by a sheriff or county.” In an advisory letter to the Onslow County Board of Commissioners, Patrick Elliott, a staff attorney with FFRF, asked the Board to “ensure that no further religious messages from Sheriff Brown are disseminated with his official title, seal, and authority [and] that the Board take appropriate disciplinary action against the Sheriff and that the Sheriff issue an apology for failing in his duty to uphold the Constitution.” The letter also seeks “all information pertaining to the purchase of this advertisement, specifically whether taxpayer funds were used.”

The Daily News reported on November 24 that Sheriff Brown told the paper “that he paid for the ad and dozens of others like it in the past 21 years out of his own pocket.” The paper also indicated that Onslow County Manager Jeff Hudson and the commissioners “received the letter from the FFRF and informed the sheriff of its existence [which] was the extent of the action the board planned to take.”

Jere Royall, staff attorney for the North Carolina Family Policy Council commented, “We commend Sheriff Brown for his faithful acknowledgment of God and His provision in the area of community standards and the law. Personally paid for statements about God’s law and our government’s founding principles of law, and how they should be applied, are clear examples of an exercise of the First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion.”

Related resources:
Court Says No Prayer In Jesus’ Name - August 2, 2011
National Day of Prayer Upheld - April 18, 2011
Court Upholds Free Speech - April 11, 2011
King Flag Compromise Proposed - November 24, 2010
Freedom of Religion Statement Issued - January 20, 2010
The Original Intent of America’s Founders - FNC - Fall 2008
A Wall of Separation? - Findings - September 2003

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