Wayne T. Price

FLORIDA TODAY

The question of whether Brevard County was wrong in the way it handled a group's request in 2015 to give the invocation at County Commission meetings is still before a judge but in case the group is successful, taxpayers will only be on the hook for $60,000.

That's because the county and the Central Florida Freethought Community, one of several local and national organizations that jointly filed suit against the county over the innovation issue, agreed to that amount during mediation prior to the judge's determination.

A ruling could come within the next few months.

Brevard sued over County Commission invocation policy

"You can never predict how a judge is going to rule but I think we have a pretty strong case and the case has only gotten stronger since we filed it," said Alex Luchenister, associate legal director at the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The Freethought Community filed suit last July contending that the county's rejection of non-believers who wanted to offer a secular invocation at the beginning of commission meetings violated the U.S. Constitution and the Florida Constitution. A federal lawsuit was filed last year in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Orlando, on the same day the County Commission voted unanimously to affirm its policy of limiting its pre-meeting invocations to representatives of the "faith-based community."

That resolution approved specified that atheists, agnostics and other non-believers could speak during the public comment portion of the meeting. And Brevard County Attorney Scott Knox noted the County Commission's written policy allows for secular invocations during the public comment portion of its agendas.

No God, No prayer: faith leaders mixed on county ban

One of the plaintiffs in the case against Brevard County, David Williamson, a director of the Central Florida Freethought Community, said having separate parts of the meeting for the faith-based community and others was not appropriate.

Knox said the settlement agreement voted on last week just outlines the amount of possible monetary damages. Aside from money, there could be other directives involved if the Freethought Community is successful.

"The federal court requires you to go through the remediation process," Knox said. "We went to mediation and basically said 'We don't agree on anything' except that we probably could work something out on damages if the county is to be determined to be liable for damages."

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include David Williamson, a director of the Central Florida Freethought Community; the Space Coast Freethought Association; its president, Chase Hansel; the Humanist Community of the Space Coast, its president; Keith Becher; and Brevard County resident Ronald Gordon.

Atheist group to sue Brevard over invocation policy

In their lawsuit, they said: "Over the last half-century, our country has made great progress — both legally and socially — toward eradicating discrimination and meeting the goal of equality for all, which lies at the heart of our Constitution. Discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, disability and, more recently, sexual orientation has become prohibited or disfavored. Nevertheless, in Brevard County's eyes, people who do not believe in God remain a disfavored minority against whom it is acceptable to discriminate."

Group: Brevard invocations should cut faiths, deities

Their attorneys are from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Contact Price at 321-242-3658 or wprice@floridatoday.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @Fla2dayBiz.