Photo by Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is insisting that Randolph County commissioners in Asheboro, N.C., immediately stop imposing their sectarian religious beliefs on the community.
A concerned county resident informed the state/church watchdog that on Dec. 8, 2025, the Board of Commissioners voted to dissolve the entire Library Board of Trustees in response to its decision to keep the book “Call Me Max,” which is about a transgender child, in the children’s section. In a video documenting the meeting, Commissioner Kenny Kidd stated, “What is important to me is the souls of our children.” FFRF has learned that the board now intends to create new Library Board of Trustees policies that would supposedly better “represent the values of Randolph County” by excluding books like “Call Me Max.”
The community member who reported this incident also informed FFRF that the board has been opening every meeting with a Christian prayer. As far back as Aug. 4, 2025, Chaplain Bill Hatfield led the audience in prayer at the board meeting, saying, “Thank you for our country. The Lord is always here when I say the pledge of allegiance, and I encourage us to do this as well. Not only to make it a pledge, but make it a prayer. … Oh we pray for our country and pray for our county. We love you Lord, we thank you, we give you praise again. Jesus Christ our lord. Amen.” And to give a very recent example, the meeting on June 1 began with a Christian prayer led by Chaplain Kevin Walton:
Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Lord, I pray that you bless and watch over this meeting and I do pray that the truth will be done. Lord, and I ask all of these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
The board ought not to lend its power and prestige to religion, especially a single religion, by scheduling, hosting or conducting governmental prayers.
“Citizens, including Randolph County’s nonreligious citizens, are compelled to come before the board and its committees on important civic matters, to seek licenses and permits and to participate in important decisions affecting their livelihoods, property, children and quality of life,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Charlotte R. Gude writes to Board Chair Darrell Frye.
Prayer at government meetings is unnecessary, inappropriate and divisive. All board members and meeting attendees are, of course, free to pray privately or to worship on their own time in their own way. However, board members do not need to worship on taxpayers’ time.
Exclusively Christian opening prayer excludes those community members who belong to the 38 percent of Americans identifying as non-Christians, including the nearly one in three Americans who are now religiously unaffiliated. It is coercive, embarrassing and intimidating for such citizens to be required to make a public showing of their nonbelief in Christianity — by not rising or praying — or else to display deference or obeisance toward a religious sentiment in which they do not believe, but which their county commissioners clearly do.
The ideal approach is to discontinue invocations altogether.
Additionally, FFRF is firmly opposed to banning books from libraries. FFRF believes that there is no true freedom of thought, conscience or even religion unless our government and its public schools are free from religion and its control over thought. The best solution is to leave a diversity of viewpoints in libraries — and trust that families will explore complex topics in the ways their beliefs dictate. As the board must know, parents, not the government, have the constitutional right to guide their children’s religious or nonreligious upbringing.
To respect the diverse range of religious and nonreligious residents living in Randolph County, FFRF is asking that the board concentrate solely on civil matters — and leave religion to the private conscience of each individual.
“As if banning books from the library were not bad enough, board members are revealing their true nature by putting prayer before meetings,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “The commissioners should stop their prayers immediately, and not channel their personal dogmatic beliefs to control what books are available to the public.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 41,000 members and several chapters across the country, including almost 1,000 members and a chapter in North Carolina, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
