KILLEEN, Texas – About 100 people showed up to Tuesday’s Killeen school board meeting to show support for board members facing legal threats from atheists for praying before meetings.

The group gathered outside the Killeen Independent School District administration building to pray for the board before going inside to present a petition with 2,574 signatures in support of the pre-meeting prayers, the Killeen Daily Herald reports.

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“This looks like heaven,” Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas President Joe Goodson told the crowd before Tuesday’s meeting. “We are in a country that has lost its soul. … We want to thank God for a school board who is willing to pray.”

The school board prayers became an issue when the atheist, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a threatening letter to board president Terry Delano Aug. 6 regarding a “constitutional violation” at a May 12 meeting, according to the Temple Daily Telegram.

“One invocation, given by a board member … called upon the ‘Righteous Heavenly Father’ to ‘guide us in our decisions … we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, Amen,’” FFRF attorney Sam Grover wrote.

“The courts have consistently held that a (public) school cannot endorse a religious message during any time,” Grover told the news site. “The school board is representative of the school district – often students and parents participate in school board meetings and in that context, there cannot be a Christian prayer to open up school board meetings.”

Local religious leaders disagree.

“At this point, there isn’t a question as to whether a Jewish person can pray or any other person can pray,” said Claudette Morgan-Scott, pastor at Killeen’s Shiloh Worship Center. “The issue is about whether a Christian person can pray.”

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Goodson told the Telegram the petition is designed to send a strong message from the community board members are elected to represent.

“We have crafted a petition that urges the school board not to back down to this intimidation, but to continue to exercise their constitutional right to the freedom of religion,” he said.

FFRF claims it’s letter demanding the board cease prayers at meetings was spawned from a local citizen who complained to the organization, and denied that it was a specific attack on Christianity.

“We get involved any time the government is promoting a religious message regardless of what that religious message is,” Grover told the Telegram. “My question to this group would be: Would they feel the same if it was an Islamic prayer, or would their position change based on the religion being presented?”

Morgan-Scott doesn’t buy it.

“The reality is that there is a specific attack on Christianity; when a letter comes like that saying we don’t want prayer in a meeting, then it’s an attack on Christianity,” she said.

Morgan-Scott and Goodson both stressed that any school board prayer is completely voluntary.

“They can pray, they’re not obligated to participate at all, it’s a matter of choice,” Morgan-Scott said.

“We want freedom; you can leave – you don’t have to be a part of it, but let us pray if we want to,” Goodson said. “They can do what I do regularly when I don’t like something that’s in the public – I just tune it out.”

“We want to hand our children a better future than one that is the product of continuing backing down to those who would strip away our religion,” he told KWTX.

The board held a moment of silence but did not pray Tuesday. Board members met with the district’s attorney in executive session and accepted the petition from the public, but did not take any type of formal action regarding the FFRF complaint.

“The school board had no comment on the public forum prayer petition presented, as members are barred from commenting on public forum items,” according to the Daily Herald.