Making good on an earlier threat, a Central Florida atheist organization has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Lakeland over its practice of opening City Commission meetings with prayer.
Atheists of Florida filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Tampa on Monday. It names the city and Mayor Gow Fields “in his official capacity as Chairman of the Lakeland City Commission” as defendants and seeks to “protect individual civil and Constitutional rights, including the right to be free from government intrusion into, entanglement with and endorsement of religious matters.”
Atheists of Florida and EllenBeth Wachs, director of its Lakeland chapter, are listed as the plaintiffs in the suit.
They haven’t got a prayer.