Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced Thursday he has joined a 22-state coalition in an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the practice of lawmaker-led prayer at public meetings.

“The tradition of legislative prayer dates back to our country's founding and is a time-honored practice in Georgia,” Carr in a news release. “The amicus brief shows that lawmaker-led prayer, at both the state and local level, is fully consistent with the Constitution and our nation's long tradition of non-coercive expressions of faith in the public sector. We have a strong interest in preserving this form of liberty.”

The coalition filed the brief Wednesday asking the high court to hear arguments in Lund v. Rowan County, a case involving a North Carolina county's practice of opening its meetings with prayer offered by its commissioners. The attorneys general asked the justices to confirm the constitutionality of that practice.

The coalition urged the court to review the case “to resolve the disagreement between the Fourth and Sixth Circuits about the role of lawmaker-led prayer in our constitutional system—a tradition dating back to the Framing and still practiced in many state and local legislative bodies today.”

The amici quoted to the high court its own words in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), saying that legislative prayer “lends gravity to public business, reminds lawmakers to transcend petty differences in pursuit of a higher purpose, and expresses a common aspiration to a just and peaceful society.”