A Lincoln County commissioner says non-Christian prayer is not welcome in government meetings that he is a part of and that he plans on keeping it that way.
Lincoln County Board of Commissioners Chairman Carrol Mitchem told WBTV that any prayer from a “minority religion” would not be heard before county meetings if he has a say in the matter.
“Other religions, or whatever, are in the minority. The U.S. was founded on Christianity,” Mitchem said. “I don’t believe we need to be bowing to the minorities. The U.S. and the Constitution were founded on Christianity. This is what the majority of people believe in, and it’s what I'm standing up for.”
WBTV contacted Mitchem after a report was published in the Lincoln Times-News. In that report, Mitchem was asked about Rowan County, which was ordered earlier in the week by a federal court to stop opening meetings with a sectarian prayer. A federal judge ruled the Rowan County Board of Commissioners violated the Constitution when they held prayers before public meetings that were specific to one religion – Christianity.
“Changing rules on the way the United States was founded, Constitution was founded (I don’t like),” Mitchem told the paper. “I don’t need no Arab or Muslim or whoever telling me what to do or us here in the county what to do about praying. If they don’t like it, stay the hell away.”
Mitchem echoed that sentiment to WBTV on Friday.
“I ain’t gonna have no new religion or pray to Allah or nothing like that,” Mitchem said. He added that anyone who doesn’t want to hear a Christian prayer can leave and “wait until we’re done praying.
“We’re fighting Muslims every day. I'm not saying they’re all bad," Mitchem said. “They believe in a different God than I do. If that’s what they want to do, that’s fine. But, they don't need to be telling us, as Christians, what we need to be doing. They don't need to be rubbing our faces in it.”
Mitchem is a 1975 graduate of West Lincoln High School. He served on the county commission from 2002 to 2006, when he lost the Republican primary. He ran again in 2008, in part, because it displeased him seeing commissioners from the other side of the county whose families had been around way less time than his were making decisions that he didn't agree with.
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