Foaming-at-the-mouth libs in 3… 2… 1.

(Christianity Today) — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) may have thought it had the upper hand when it filed suit against a North Carolina county for opening its board meetings with explicitly Christian prayers. After all, the federal Establishment Clause of the Constitution prohibits the government from interfering with citizens’ religious exercise.

But a new bill introduced in the North Carolina state legislature would protect the county’s right to prayer in an unconventional way: bynullifying any federal regulations or court rulings regarding religion.

Eleven House lawmakers already have signed on to the bill, which “would [allow North Carolina to] refuse to acknowledge the force of any judicial ruling on prayer in North Carolina—or indeed on any Constitutional topic,” according to WRAL, a local news source.

The bill asserts that each state has the right to determine how to apply the Constitution and “does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.”

The state-level attempt to preserve public prayer is unique, but not necessarily unprecedented—and courts are split on the legality of similar attempts. Last week, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals recentlyupheld a city’s prayer policy, just one day after a district court ruled that a county board in Pennsylvania cannot open its meetings with Christian prayers.