LOUISVILLE — Two anti-discrimination agencies have agreed to discontinue blessings and benedictions at public events after the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky intervened when people complained that the prayers violated the First Amendment.

        Complaints about the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights and the Louisville and Jefferson County Human Relations Commission were resolved last year without litigation, but the informal settlements were not disclosed until last week, when they were reported in the ACLU's quarterly newsletter.

        From 1997 through last year, the county Human Relations Commission had invited clergy of various faiths to give benedictions and bless meals at its annual Race and Relations Conference, said the commission's director, Phyllis Ati ba Brown.

        She said the commissioners decided to discontinue the practice after receiving a letter last year from the ACLU's general counsel. The state Human Rights Commission was the subject of complaints about prayers at two celebrations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and at another event it sponsored with the Louisville Defender newspaper and the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a black newspaper group.

        “We said we would stop this practice,” said Beverly Watts, the commission's executive director. However, she noted that historically the civil-rights movement has been led by religious groups and clergy.

        “We said we would try to honor this tradition without offending anyone,” she said. “I am not sure we were violating anyone's rights.”

        Catherine Morton Ward, a lawyer who worked briefly for the state agency, had complained that both commissions unconstitutionally imposed Christian beliefs on people of other faiths and no faith.

        In an interview, she said it was “ironic to say the least” that anti-discrimination agencies were violating laws and were insensitive to religious minorities.

        The ACLU said it acted on behalf of people who attended events sponsored by the agencies. Ms. Ward said she was one of several people who complained.

        The ACLU argued that having prayers at public events sponsored by the agencies violated the First Amendment's establishment clause, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another.

        Ms. Ward said the “very, very Christian prayer” offered at one of the county agency's diversity seminars was particularly offensive because people of many faiths, including Jews, Buddhists and Muslims — and people of no faith — were invited.

        In 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that state legislatures may begin their sessions with a prayer. The court noted that Congress has opened its sessions with prayers for 200 years. But the court has not ruled on whether prayer is a permissible part of local agencies' operations.

        Both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly begin their sessions with a prayer.

        Kentucky's lone Jewish legislator, Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, complained about a prayer last year in which a minister said the only way to salvation was through Jesus.

        The minister, the Rev. Tim H. Wells of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bethlehem, said in an interview that he had not meant to offend anyone, but that he didn't see how he could pray without mentioning Jesus.

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