{"id":254,"date":"2023-09-06T19:01:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storypress.site\/?p=254"},"modified":"2023-09-06T19:01:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:01:10","slug":"sheriff-stands-his-ground-after-organization-asks-him-to-stop-promoting-prayer-on-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storypress.site\/?p=254","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff Stands His Ground After Organization Asks Him To Stop Promoting Prayer On Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Note: we are republishing this story which originally made the news in December 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The Freedom from Religion Foundation, a non-profit group, sent a letter to the Walker County Sheriff, Nick Smith, asking the department to stop making religious references on its official Facebook page.<\/p>\n<p>The page has posts calling for prayer after the shooting of Lowndes County Sheriff Williams, and another one about the tragedy that befell a young boy and a sheriff\u2019s deputy.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation asked the sheriff to be more inclusive, stating that while the department was doing a great job supporting the ones in mourning, it needs to be aware of those in the county who are non-religious.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/24timescon.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/csv.webp\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: Facebook\/Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe issue here is that the sheriff\u2019s office has a pattern of using tragedy to promote the idea of prayer and our letter reminds the sheriff, not everyone in Walker County prayers or believes in the same religion,\u201d said Sam Grover, Associate Counsel for the Freedom of Religion Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation maintained that it was not interested in filing a lawsuit at the time, but it hoped that the sheriff would stop making religious references on social media in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to WBRC Fox6, Sheriff Smith stated that he had no intention of stopping the references.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note: we are republishing this story which originally made the news in December 2019. The Freedom from Religion Foundation, a non-profit group, sent a letter to the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sheriff Stands His Ground After Organization Asks Him To Stop Promoting Prayer On Facebook - Story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/storypress.site\/?p=254\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sheriff Stands His Ground After Organization Asks Him To Stop Promoting Prayer On Facebook - Story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Note: we are republishing this story which originally made the news in December 2019. 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